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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Peeps at Many Lands: Ireland - -Author: Katharine Tynan - -Illustrator: Francis S. Walker - -Release Date: September 2, 2013 [EBook #43623] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT MANY LANDS: IRELAND *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - PEEPS AT MANY LANDS AND CITIES - -EACH CONTAINING 12 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR - - AUSTRALIA GREECE NEW ZEALAND - BELGIUM HOLLAND NORWAY - BERLIN HOLY LAND PARIS - BURMA HUNGARY PORTUGAL - CANADA ICELAND ROME - CEYLON INDIA RUSSIA - CHINA IRELAND SCOTLAND - CORSICA ITALY SIAM - DENMARK JAMAICA SOUTH AFRICA - EDINBURGH JAPAN SOUTH SEAS - EGYPT KASHMIR SPAIN - ENGLAND KOREA SWEDEN - FINLAND LONDON SWITZERLAND - FRANCE MOROCCO TURKEY - GERMANY NEW YORK WALES - - PEEPS AT NATURE - - WILD FLOWERS AND THEIR WONDERFUL WAYS - BRITISH LAND MAMMALS - BIRD LIFE OF THE SEASONS - THE HEAVENS - - PEEPS AT HISTORY - - CANADA JAPAN - INDIA SCOTLAND - - PEEPS AT GREAT RAILWAYS - - THE LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY -THE NORTH-EASTERN AND GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAYS - -PUBLISHED BY ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK - -SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. - - AGENTS - - AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - 64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK - - AUSTRALASIA OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS - 205 FLINDERS LANE, MELBOURNE - - CANADA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD. - ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE, 70 BOND STREET, TORONTO - - INDIA MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD. - MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY - 309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA - -[Illustration: THE EAGLE'S NEST, KILLARNEY.] - -[Illustration] - - - - - PEEPS AT MANY LANDS - - IRELAND - - BY - - KATHARINE TYNAN - - AUTHOR OF "THE DEAR IRISH GIRL," "AN ISLE IN THE - WATER," ETC. - - WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS - IN COLOUR - - BY - - FRANCIS S. WALKER, R.H.A. - - LONDON - ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK - 1911 - - _First printed November, 1909 - Reprinted October, 1910, and September, 1911_ - - - - -CONTENTS - - -CHAPTER PAGE - - I. ARRIVAL 1 - - II. DUBLIN 6 - - III. THE IRISH COUNTRY 20 - - IV. THE IRISH PEOPLE 27 - - V. SOUTH OF DUBLIN 38 - - VI. THE NORTH 44 - - VII. CORK AND THEREABOUTS 49 - -VIII. GALWAY 58 - - IX. DONEGAL OF THE STRANGER 65 - - X. IRISH TRAITS AND WAYS 76 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - -THE EAGLE'S NEST, KILLARNEY _Frontispiece_ - - FACING PAGE - -A VILLAGE IN ACHILL viii - -SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN 9 - -DUBLIN BAY FROM VICTORIA HILL 16 - -BLARNEY CASTLE 25 - -OFF TO AMERICA 32 - -A WICKLOW GLEN 41 - -THE RIVER LEE 48 - -RALEIGH'S HOUSE, MYRTLE GROVE 57 - -GLENCOLUMBKILLE HEAD 64 - -A DONEGAL HARVEST 73 - -A HOME IN DONEGAL 80 - -DIGGING POTATOES _on the cover_ - - _Sketch-Map of Ireland on p. vii_ - -[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF IRELAND.] - -[Illustration: A VILLAGE IN ACHILL.] - - - - -IRELAND - - - - -CHAPTER I - -ARRIVAL - - -It may safely be said that any boy or girl who takes a peep at Ireland -will want another peep. Between London and Ireland, so far as atmosphere -and the feeling of things is concerned, there is a world of distance. Of -course, it is the difference between two races, for the Irish are mainly -Celtic, and the Celtic way of thinking and speaking and feeling is as -different as possible from the Saxon or the Teuton, and the Celt has -influenced the Anglo-Irish till they are as far away from the English -nearly as the Celts themselves. If you are at all alert, you will begin -to find the difference as soon as you step off the London and North -Western train at Holyhead and go on board the steamer for Kingstown. The -Irish steward and stewardess will have a very different way from the -formal English way. They will be expansive. They will use ten words to -one of the English official. Their speech will be picturesque; and if -you are gifted with a sense of humour--and if you are not, you had -better try to beg, borrow or steal it before you go to Ireland--there -will be much to delight you. I once heard an Irish steward on a long-sea -boat at London Docks remonstrate with the passengers in this manner: - -"Gentlemen, gentlemen, will yez never get to bed? Yez know as well as I -do that every light on the boat is out at twelve o'clock. It's now a -quarter to wan, and out goes the lights in ten minutes." - -There is what the Englishman calls an Irish bull in this speech; but the -Irish bull usually means that something is left to the imagination. I -will leave you to discover for yourself the hiatus which would have made -the steward's remark a sober English statement. - -These things make an Irish heart bound up as exultantly as the lark -springs to the sky of a day of April--that is to say, of an Irish exile -home-returning--for the dweller in Ireland grows used to such pearls of -speech. - -Said a stewardess to whom I made a request that she would bring to my -cabin a pet-dog who, under the charge of the cook, was making the night -ring with his lamentations: "Do you want to have me murdered?" This -only conveyed that it was against the regulations. But while she looked -at me her eye softened. "I'll do it for _you_," she said, with a subtle -suggestion that she wouldn't do it for anyone else; and then added -insinuatingly, "if the cook was to mind the basket?" "To be sure," said -I, being Irish. "Ask the cook if he will kindly mind the basket and let -me have the dog." And so it was done, and the cook had his perquisite, -while I had the dog. - -At first, unless you have a very large sense of humour--and many English -people have, though the Irish who do not know anything about them deny -it to them _en bloc_--you will be somewhat bewildered. Apropos of the -same little dog, we asked a policeman at the North Wall, one wintry -morning of arrival, if the muzzling order was in force in Dublin. - -"Well, it is and it isn't," he said. "Lasteways, there's a muzzlin' -order on the south side, but there isn't on the north, through Mr. L---- -on the North Union Board, that won't let them pass it. If I was you I'd -do what I liked with the dog this side of the river, but when I crossed -the bridge I'd hide him. You'll be in a cab, won't you?" - -After you've had a few peeps at Ireland, you won't want the jokes -explained to you, perhaps, or the picturesqueness of speech -demonstrated. - -Before you glide up to the North Wall Station you will have discovered -some few things about Ireland besides the picturesqueness of the Irish -tongue. You will have seen the lovely coast-line, all the townships -glittering in a fairy-like atmosphere, with the mountains of Dublin and -Wicklow standing up behind them. You will have passed Howth, that -wonderful rock, which seems to take every shade of blue and purple, and -silver and gold, and pheasant-brown and rose. You will have felt the -Irish air in your face; and the Irish air is soft as a caress. You will -have come up the river, its squalid and picturesque quays. You will have -noticed that the poor people walking along the quay-side are far more -ragged and unkempt generally than the same class in England. The women -have a way of wearing shawls over their heads which does not belong -naturally to the Western world, and sets one to thinking of the curious -belief some people have entertained about the Irish being descended from -the lost tribes. A small girl in a Dublin street will hold her little -shawl across her mouth, revealing no more of the face than the eyes and -nose, with an effect which is distinctly Eastern. The quay-side streets -are squalid enough, and the people ragged beyond your experience, but -there will be no effect of depression and despondency such as assails -you in the East End of London. The people are much noisier. They greet -each other with a shrillness that reminds you of the French. The streets -are cheerful, no matter how poor they may be. I have always said that -there is ten times the noise in an Irish street, apart from mere -traffic, than in an English one. An Irish village is full of noise, -chatter of women, crying of children, barking of dogs, lowing of cattle, -bleating of sheep, crowing of cocks, cackling of hens, quacking of -ducks, grunting of pigs. The people talk at the top of their voices, so -that you might suppose them to be quarrelling. It is merely the dramatic -sense. I have heard an Irish peasant make a bald statement--or, at -least, it would have been bald in an English mouth--as though she -pleaded, argued, remonstrated, scolded, deprecated. - -Accustomed to Irish ways, English villages have always appeared very -dead to me. Unless it be on market morning, one might be in the Village -of the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty. I once visited Dunmow of the -Flitch of a golden May-day. It was neither Flitch Day nor Market Day, -and I aver that I walked through the town and saw no living creature, -except a cat fast asleep, right in the midst of the sun-baked roadway. -Such a thing could not have happened in Ireland. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -DUBLIN - - -Dublin is a city of magnificences and squalors. It has the widest street -in Europe, they say, in Sackville Street, which, after the manner of the -policeman and the muzzling order, half the population calls O'Connell -Street. The public buildings are very magnificent. These are due, for -the greater part, to the man who found Dublin brick and left it -marble--that great city-builder, John Claudius Beresford, of the latter -half of the eighteenth century, whose name is at once famous and -infamous to the Irish ear, because when he had made a new Dublin he -flogged rebels in Beresford's Riding-School in Marlborough Street with a -thoroughness which left nothing to be desired except a little mercy. -Beresford, who was one of the Waterford Beresfords, was First -Commissioner of Revenue, as well as an Alderman of the City of Dublin. -Before he went city-building, Dublin was a small place enough. For -centuries it consisted chiefly of Dublin Castle, the two -cathedrals--Patrick's and Christ's Church; Dublin is alone in Northern -Europe in possessing two cathedrals--and the narrow streets that -clustered about them. Somewhere about the middle of the eighteenth -century St. Stephen's Green was built--the finest square in Europe, we -say; I do not know if the claim be well founded. A little later -Sackville Street began to take shape, communicating with the other bank -of the river by ferry-boats. Essex Bridge was at that time the most -easterly of the bridges, and the banks of the river were merely -mud-flats, especially so where James Gandon's masterpiece, the -Custom-House, was presently to rear its stately faade. The latter part -of the eighteenth century was the great age of Dublin. Ireland still had -its Lords and Commons, who had declared their legislative independence -of England in 1782. Society was as brilliant as London, and far gayer. -It was certainly a time in which to go city-building, for these -splendours needed housing. Before Beresford began his plans, calling in -the genius of James Gandon, with many lesser lights, to assist him, -Sackville Street and Dublin generally were as insanitary as any town of -the Middle Ages. Open sewers ran down the middle of the streets. There -was no pretence at paving. The streets were ill-lit by smelly oil-lamps. -The Dublin watchmen found plenty to do, as did their brethren in London, -in protecting peaceful citizens from the pranks of the Dublin brethren -of the London Mohocks in the tortuous and ill-lit streets. Dublin, the -city of the English pale, remained and remains an English city--with a -difference. The Anglo-Irish did the things their London brethren were -doing--with a difference. If there were unholy revels at Medmenham Abbey -on the Thames, they were imitated or excelled by their Irish prototypes, -whose clubhouse you will still see standing up before you a ruin on top -of the Dublin mountains. In many ways the society of Dublin models -itself on London to this day. - -The Lords and Commons of Ireland were already living about the Rotunda -in Sackville Street, Rutland Square, Gardiner's Row, Great Denmark -Street, Marlborough Street, and North Great George's Street, when John -Claudius Beresford began his work. He bridged the river with -Carlisle--now O'Connell--Bridge. He constructed Westmoreland Street -right down to the Houses of Parliament. - -[Illustration: SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN.] - -He built the Custom-House, now a rabbit-warren of Government offices, on -a scale proportioned to the needs of the greatest trading city in -Europe, oblivious of the fact that Irish trade was going or gone; or, -perhaps--who knows?--building for the future. All that part of the city -lying between the new bridge and the Custom-House was laid out in -streets. Meanwhile the nobility and gentry who had town-houses were -seized with the passion for beautifying them. The old Dublin houses were -of an extraordinary stateliness and beauty. Money was poured out like -water on their beautification. The floral decoration in stucco-work on -walls and ceilings still makes a dirty glory in some of the old houses. -Famous artists, like Cipriani and Angelica Kauffmann, painted the -wall-panels and ceilings with pseudo-classical goddesses and nymphs. A -certain Italian named Bossi executed that inlaying in coloured marbles -which made so many of the old mantelpieces things of beauty. The old -Dublin houses still retain their stately proportions, although some of -them have been dismantled and others come down to be tenement-houses. -But there is yet plenty to remind us that Dublin had once its Augustan -Age. - -If you have the tastes of the antiquary, the old Dublin houses and -buildings will afford you matter of great interest. - -In the first place, there is Dublin Castle, which was built by King -John. Of the four original towers, only one now remains. The castle has -been the town residence of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland since Sidney -established himself there in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. For the rest, -it is a congerie of Government offices of one sort or another. - -The castle was built over the Poddle River, which now creeps in -darkness, degraded to a common sewer, under the dark and dismal houses, -and empties itself in an unclean cascade through a grating in the Quay -walls, whence it flows away with the Liffey to the sea. You can visit -the Chapel Royal, if you will, and the viceregal apartments are -sometimes open to inspection if the Viceroy is not in residence. I lived -many years in Dublin without desiring to inspect what may be seen of -Dublin Castle, though I have often stood in the castle yard under the -Bermingham Tower, and, looking up at that great keep, have remembered -how Hugh O'Donnell and his companions escaped by way of the Poddle one -Christmas Eve in the spacious days of great Elizabeth, and how the young -chieftain of Tyrconnel narrowly escaped the frozen death which befell -his companions as they climbed those Dublin mountains over yonder to -find refuge with the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes of the Wicklow Hills. - -Those were the Irish clans that used to make the English burghers of -Dublin shake in their shoes. While they sold their silks or woollens, or -sat at meals or exchange, or said their prayers in their churches, they -never could be sure that the wild Irish cry would not come ringing at -their gates. The O'Byrnes and O'Tooles would swoop down at intervals, -and raid the cattle from the fat pastures of the pale, sweeping back -again with their spoil to their impregnable fastnesses. Some years ago a -Father O'Toole published a book on the Clan of O'Toole, which contained -the genealogical tree of the O'Tooles, tracing their descent without a -break from Noah. This is a matter of interest to me, as I myself am an -O'Toole. - -The history of nations is, after all, the history of men--of men and of -movements--and it is individual and outstanding men who make for us the -milestones of history. Ireland has produced, in proportion to her -population, a more than usual number of outstanding men; and, thinking -of Dublin houses and monuments of one kind or another, we find it is of -men we are thinking, after all. - -Thinking of Christ Church, that beautiful Gothic cathedral, I think of -St. Patrick, because his staff was preserved there, and was an object of -great reverence till it was burnt by a too-zealous reforming Bishop in -the days of Elizabeth. St. Patrick was a very delightful saint. One -loves the legends that gather about him. I like especially how he -wrestled with the angel on Croagh-Patrick, and would not come down from -the mountain till he had been granted his several prayers. There were -three in particular. The first one was that Ireland should never depart -from the Christian faith. "Very well, then," said the angel, "God grants -you that." "Next," said Patrick, "I ask that on the Judgment Day I may -sit on God's right hand and judge the Irish people." "That you can't -have," said the angel. "Be quiet now, and go down from the mountain." -"What!" said Patrick, "is it for this that I have fasted so many days on -the mountain, wrested with evil ones, been exposed to the rain and -tempest, prayed hard, fought temptations--only for this?" "Very well, -you shall have this," replied the angel. "And now that you have your -wish satisfied, go down from the mountain." "Not till my third prayer be -granted." "What! a third prayer?" cried the angel. "You ask too much, O -Patrick, and you shall not have it. You are too covetous." "Was it for -this?" began Patrick again, with a recital of all he had done and -suffered. "Very well, then," said the angel, tired out; "have your third -prayer, but ask no more, for it will not be given to you." "I ask that -all who recite my prayer" (_i.e._, the prayer known as St. Patrick's -Breastplate) "shall not be lost at the Last Day." "Very well, then," -said the angel, "you shall have that; but now go down." "I am content -now," said Patrick; "I will go down." - -He was a fighting saint, despite his many gentlenesses. At Downpatrick, -where he built his cathedral, he took a little fawn which his men would -have killed, and carried it in his breast. I like the description of him -by his friend St. Evan of Monasterevan, which tells us how he was sweet -to his friends, but terrible to his enemies. - -I think of St. Patrick at Christ Church rather than of St. Lawrence -O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, who, with Strongbow, that fierce Norman -who seized Ireland for Henry II. of England, built Christ Church. St. -Lawrence O'Toole's heart lies here in a reliquary. Here also Lambert -Simnel was crowned; but who thinks of that ignoble impostor now? - -Christ Church presents an effect of lightness and brightness very -different from St. Patrick's, in which it seems to me it is always -afternoon, and winter afternoon. Patrick is in a particularly -picturesque slum of the city, in the Earl of Meath's liberty, hard by -the Coombe, which was once a pleasant dell, no doubt, but is now the -raggedest of slums. To the Earl of Meath's liberty came the French -silk-weavers expelled from France after the revocation of the Edict of -Nantes, and established the industry of poplin-weaving there. - -The man with whom St. Patrick's Cathedral is associated is Jonathan -Swift, and for his sake it is perpetually dark. It is haunted by the -tragedy of his life and death. Here Esther Johnson is buried; and over -yonder, in the Deanery House, Swift, a sick man, lay in bed and watched -the torches in the great church when they were making ready her grave. -The strange bitterness of the terrible inscription which commemorates -that most unhappy great man seems to colour the atmosphere of St. -Patrick's. "Where fierce indignation can no more lacerate his heart," he -rests by the side of the woman who was faithful to him with a long -patience, whose death left him to loneliness and madness. - -The whole place is haunted by him, as is the deanery close by and the -old library of Dr. Marsh, which is said to have a ghost that flings the -books about at night. - -What ghosts meet one in the Dublin streets! There is Wesley. He was -visiting the Countess of Moira at Moira House, which now, docked of its -upper story, is the Mendicity, or, as the Irish put it, the "Mendacity" -Institution. It was a splendid mansion when Wesley was there. One room -with a bay-window was lined with mother-o'-pearl. "Alas," said Wesley -prophetically, "that all this must vanish like a dream!" The Moiras were -not only religious: they were cultivated, refined, patriotic in the -truest sense--altogether noble and generous. They received poor Pamela, -Lady Edward Fitzgerald, with kindly open arms when that romantic hero, -Lord Edward, lay dying of his wounds. - -You shall see, if you will, the old House of Lords, preserved in its old -state by the Governors of the Bank of Ireland, who have made it their -board-room. The House of Commons has become the Bank's counting-house, -and there is no trace of its former state. What ghosts you might meet -there at night!--Grattan, Flood, Curran, Hussey Burgh, Plunket, to say -nothing of lesser worthies. Over against the Parliament Houses was -Daly's Club-House, where forgathered the wits, the bucks, the -duellists. There was Buck Whaley, who walked to Jerusalem for a wager, -and for the same reason once sprang out of the window of his house on -Stephen's Green into a carriage full of ladies. That house is now -University College, and has its associations with Newman; and you might -see there some of the most beautiful specimens of the eighteenth-century -decoration still remaining--the Bossi mantelpieces, the stucco-work, the -beautiful old doors of wine-red mahogany, and all the rest of it. Buck -Whaley had a friend, Buck Jones, who is commemorated in Jones's Road. -When I was a little girl--and how long ago that is I shall not tell -you--Buck Jones's ghost still walked the road which is named after him. -You see, Dublin still ranged itself alongside London; and we had our -Buck Whaley and our Buck Jones if London and Bath had their Beau Brummel -and their Beau Nash. - -[Illustration: DUBLIN BAY FROM VICTORIA HILL.] - -Cheek by jowl with the Houses of Parliament is the ancient college of -Queen Elizabeth--the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. That, -too, has memories and ghosts. The University has had illustrious sons. -Swift, Goldsmith, Bishop Berkeley, Edmund Burke, were among them. Swift -was "stopped of his degree for dulness," and had no love for his -_alma mater_. She had other sons, such as Robert Emmet and Theobald -Wolfe Tone and Thomas Davis, among her brightest jewels, though she -would not have it so. She spreads a quiet place of grey quadrangles and -green park and gardens midmost of the city, and she helps to give -dignity to Dublin, already by her Viceregal Court marked as no -provincial town. - -If I were to talk to you of the ancient history of Dublin, this book -would become, not "A Peep at Ireland," but "A Peep at Dublin." You will -see for yourself the ancient houses of the nobility, the Lords and -Commons of Ireland. Some of them have come to strange uses. Aldborough -House is a barracks; Powerscourt House was in my day a wholesale -draper's; Marino, the splendid residence of the Earls of Charlemont at -Clontarf, is in the hands of the Christian Brothers. Many of these old -houses are turned into Government offices. - -"Alas, that all this must vanish like a dream!" said John Wesley. And -how quickly he was justified! In the latter part of the eighteenth -century Dublin prided itself on being the gayest capital in Europe. -Perhaps Dublin had always too many pretensions. However, it was -sufficiently gay and extraordinarily picturesque. The Rutland -viceroyalty marked, perhaps, its highest water-mark of gaiety. It was -said that the Rutlands were sent over "to drink the Irish into -good-humour"--that is, to distract them from serious matters, such as -legislative independence and the like. However that may be, they did set -the capital to dancing. After all, it was always the Anglo-Irish who -counted in the rebellious movements. One has to go as far back as Owen -Roe O'Neill to find a Celtic leader. For the time, at all events, Dublin -gave itself up to the fascinations of the gallant and gay young Duke and -his wonderful Duchess. The Irish allowed that the Duchess was one of the -handsomest women in Ireland. Elsewhere she was reputed among the -loveliest in Europe. We hear of her dancing at a ball attired in light -pink silk, with diamond stomacher and sleeve-knots, and wearing a large -brown hat profusely adorned with jewels. Every night there were balls at -the castle or the Rotunda. The Duchess was dancing Dublin into -good-humour. There were all manner of other social festivities. Every -Sunday the Duchess drove on the North Circular Road, with six -cream-coloured ponies to her phaeton, all the rank and fashion of Dublin -following in coaches-and-six, coaches-and-four, and less pretentious -equipages. There was card-playing; there was hard drinking; there were -all manner of distractions, disedifying and edifying. For then, as now, -the representatives of the King and Queen took the charities under their -wing; and dancing at the Rotunda supported the Rotunda Hospital, to say -nothing of the tax on the waiting sedan-chairs, which put a few hundred -pounds more into the hospital's coffers. - -"Alas, that all this must vanish like a dream!" To be sure, many of the -most illustrious of the Anglo-Irish, more Irish than the Irish, refused -to be either danced or drunk into good-humour. The brilliant viceroyalty -lasted not quite four years, and the gay and handsome Duke left Ireland -in the saddest way, carried high on men's shoulders. - -Afterwards there were other things than dancing. There was the Rebellion -of 1798. There was the Legislative Union with Great Britain, which meant -for Ireland the absence of her Lords and gentry, and the spending in -London of revenues derived from Ireland. - -In the early years of the nineteenth century grass grew in the streets -of Dublin. Famine and pestilence followed each other in monotonous -succession. Emmet's Rebellion broke out in 1804. If you were interested -in such things, you would penetrate the slummy parts of Dublin as far -as Thomas Street to see where, in front of St. Catharine's Church, Emmet -died, and the house where Lord Edward Fitzgerald was arrested. - -Dublin is full of memories, of associations, of ghosts: no city in -Europe is richer in such. There is hardly a stone of her streets which -is not storied. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE IRISH COUNTRY - - -Dublin possesses great natural advantages. The sea, the mountains, the -green country, are at her gates. You take one of her many trams, and at -the terminus you step into solitudes, into "dear secret greenness" of -country; on to expanses of sea-sand, with the waves breaking in little -crisped curls of foam at your feet. She is ringed about with mountains. -She has a most beautiful coast-line. Turn which way you will on leaving -her, you are safe to turn to beauty. Round about her are clustered -various beauties. Beyond the Dublin mountains, the Wicklow Mountains, -into which they gently pass, invite you. The mountains have the most -beautiful colouring. It is an effect of the mists and clouds. I have -seen a mountain red as a rose, and I have seen one black as a black -pansy and as velvety. Sometimes they are veiled in silver, with the soft -feet of the flying rain upon them; and sometimes, because the sun is -shining somewhere, that same rain will be a garment of silver or of the -rainbow. - -She is the greenest country ever was seen. England may think she wears -the green; but as compared with Ireland her green is rust-coloured and -dust-coloured. I have gone over from London in May and have found a -green in Ireland that absolutely made me wink. - - "Sweet rose whose hue, angry and brave, - Bids the rash gazer wipe the eye," - -says Herbert; but the green, which is the eye's comforter of all the -colours, is, in an Irish May, of so intense a greenness as to have -something of the same effect as Herbert's rose. I think of the fat -pasture-lands at the gates of Dublin, as well I know them. In May they -are drifts of greenness, with the cattle sunken to their knees, while -the meadows white with daisies, gold with buttercups, presently to be -brown and green with seeding-grasses, have an exceeding cleanness and -brightness of aspect. Grass-green, milk-white, pure gold--these are -fields of delight. There used to be luxuriant hedges, too, ten or -twelve feet high. What hedges they were in May! with the hawthorn in -full bloom--no one calls it may in Ireland--and, later, the -woodbine--honeysuckle in Ireland is the white and purple clover--and -with the woodbine the sheets of wild roses flung lavishly over every -hedge. Since my young days an improving county surveyor has cut down the -hedges, though not so ruthlessly as here in Hertfordshire, where they -are noted hedgers and ditchers, and so strip the poor things to the -earth almost, just as they are coming into leaf, leaving the roads -pitiless indeed for the summer days. - -I think of the lavish Irish hedges and of the strip of grass white with -daisies which ran either side of the footpath. There was always a clear -stream singing along the ditch. It had come down from the mountains, and -was amber-brown in colour, and clear as glass; it ran over pebbles that -were pure gold and silver and precious stones, now and again getting -dammed around a boulder, making a leap to escape, and coming around the -boulder with a swirl and a few specks of foam floating upon it. Ireland -of the Streams is one of the old names for Ireland, and it is justified; -for not only are there lordly rivers like the Shannon and the -Blackwater, to mention but two of them, but there are innumerable -little streams everywhere, undefiled--at least, as I know them--by -factories. You can always kneel down of a summer's day by one, fill your -two hands full and drink your fill; and that mountain water is better -than any wine. You may track it, if you will, up to the mountains, where -you will find it welling out, perhaps, through the fronds of a -hartstongue fern, the first tiny gush of it; and you will find it -widening out and almost hidden by a million flowers and plants that like -to stand with their feet in water. Or you will see it, cool and deep, -with golden shadows sleeping in it, slipping round little boulders and -clattering over stones, in a tremendous hurry to escape from these sweet -places to the noisome city, where it will lose itself in the sewer water -before it finds its way to the sea. - -There is no such order in an Irish as in an English landscape: none of -the rich, ordered garden air which in England so delights Americans and -colonials. The Irish landscape is always somewhat forlorn, wild and -soft, with an impalpable melancholy upon it--this even in the fat -pasture-lands of Dublin County. How much more so when the bogs spread -their beautiful brown desolation over miles of country, or in the wild -places where man asks for bread and Nature gives him a stone! At its -most prosperous the country is always a little wild, a little mournful, -a barefooted colleen with cloudy hair and shy eyes sometimes tearful, -and no conventional beauty--only something that takes the heart by storm -and holds it fast. - -Irish skies weep a deal. That accounts, of course, for the great -vegetation, the intense greenness. If I did not know the Irish green I -should be unable to realize the mantle of grass-green silk which so -often the old ballad-makers gave their knights and ladies. Knowing the -Irish grass, I see an intenser green than if I did not know it. Where -there are not rocks and stones and mountains, where there is cultivation -in Ireland, there is leafage and grass of great luxuriousness. Of a wet -summer in Ireland you could scarcely walk through the grass; it might -meet above a child's head. Contrariwise, the flora of Ireland, as I know -it, is much less various and luxuriant than that of England. In a -childhood and youth spent in the Irish country--it was round about -Dublin--I recall only the simpler and commoner wild-flowers. On a chalk -cliff at Dover, when May spread a carpet of flowers, I have seen a -greater variety of wild-flowers than I knew in a lifetime in -Ireland--most of them unknown to me by name. - -[Illustration: BLARNEY CASTLE.] - -Nor do I think the birds are so many as in England, perhaps because so -much of Ireland is stripped of its woods; perhaps because Ireland has -been slower to protect the birds than England; perhaps, also, because of -the scantier population, which leaves the birds to suffer hunger in the -winter. There are no nightingales in Ireland, but I do not think we have -missed them, having the thrush and the blackbird, which seem to me to -sing with a richer sweetness in Ireland than in England; but that may be -because the Irish-born person is prone to exaggerate the sweetness he -has lost. But the most characteristic note of the Irish summer is the -corn-crake's. Somehow the Irish corn-crake has a bigger note and is much -more in evidence than his English brother. All the nights of the early -summer in Ireland he saws away with his rasping note, till the hay is -cut, when he disappears. I suppose one hears him as much in the -day-time, but one does not notice him. He is the harsh Irish -nightingale. Poor fellow! he is often immolated before the -mowing-machine; and you shall see him flying with his long-legged wife -and children--or rather scurrying--to the nearest hedgerow, where there -is always a plentiful supply of grass to cover him till he can make up -his mind to go elsewhere. It is a saying in Ireland that you never see -a corn-crake after the meadows are cut. A learned doctor has assured me -that they migrate to Egypt for the good of their voices. - -For the rest, in the Irish country there are villages of an incredible -poverty. The Irish village mars a landscape, whereas so often an English -one enhances its beauty. There are farmhouses and isolated cottages. The -farmhouses are seldom even pretty. Irish house architecture is terribly -ugly, as a rule, except for the few eighteenth-century houses which -derive from the English. The Irish farmhouse is generally a two-story -building, slated and whitewashed. It is too narrow for its height, -although the height may be no great thing. A mean hall-door in the -middle, with a mean window to either side, three mean windows -above--that is the Irish farmer's idea of house-building. I remember an -Irishman of genius objecting to Morland that his cottages were -impossible; there was never the like out of Arcadia. As a matter of -fact, the cottages were such as are the commonplaces of English -villages. But no good Irishman will concede to England a beauty, natural -or otherwise, which Ireland does not possess. The country shows many -ruins--ruined houses, the houses of the Irish gentry; ruined mills; -ruined churches and castles; and behind grey stone walls, unthought of, -uncared for, old disused graveyards filled with prairie grass to the -height of the crumbling walls. - -When the Irish go away they are always lonely for the mountains. No -other mountains are so soft-bosomed and so mild. They have wisps of -cloud lying along the side of them and the blue peak showing above. I -have seen a rainbow, one end of the arch planted in the sea, the other -somewhere behind the mountains, "over the hills and far away." Seeing -that incomparable sight, I understood why the Irish peasant imagines -fairy treasures hidden at the foot of the rainbow. I, too, have been in -Arcadia. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE IRISH PEOPLE - - -I must warn you, before proceeding to write about the Irish people, that -I have tried to explain them, according to my capacity, a thousand times -to my English friends and neighbours, and have been pulled up short as -many times by the reflection that all I have been saying was -contradicted by some other aspect of my country-people. For we are an -eternally contradictory people, and none of us can prognosticate -exactly what we shall feel, what do, under given circumstances; whereas -the Englishman is simple. He has no mysteries. Once you know him, you -can pretty well tell what he will say, what feel, and do under given -circumstances. You have a formula for him: you have no formula for the -Irish. The Englishman is simple, the Irish complex. The Anglo-Irish, who -stand to most English people for the Irish, have had grafted on to them -the complexity of the Irish without their pliability. It makes, perhaps, -the most puzzling of all mixtures, and it may be the chief difficulty in -a proper estimate of the Irish character. - -They will tell you in Ireland that you have to go some forty or fifty -miles from Dublin before you get into Irish Ireland. There are a good -many Irish in Anglo-Ireland, usually in the humbler walks of life, -whence you shall find in Dublin servants, car-drivers, policemen, -newspaper-boys, and so on, the raciness, the vivacity, the charm, which -in Irish Ireland is a perpetual delight. Dublin drawing-rooms are not -vivacious, nor are the manners gracious, although the Four Courts still -produce a galaxy of wit, and Dublin citizens buttonhole each other with -good stories all along the streets, roaring with laughter in a way that -would be regarded as Bedlam in Fleet Street. - -Get into Irish Ireland and the manners have a graciousness which is like -a blessing. I asked the way in Ballyshannon town once. The woman who -directed me came out into the street and a little way with me, and when -she left me called to me sweetly, "Come back soon to Donegal!" which -left a sense of blessing with me all that day. There was a certain -curly-haired "Wullie," who drove the long car from Donegal to Killybegs. -I can see "Wullie" yet helping the women on and off the car with their -myriad packages, can see the delightful grief with which he parted from -us, his shining face of welcome when he met us again a fortnight later. -To set against "Wullie" were the car-drivers, who certainly are -unpleasant if the "whip-money" does not come up to their expectations. -We say of such that they are "spoilt by the tourists," yet I remember -some who were not spoilt by the tourists, although they were perpetually -in touch with them--boatmen and pony-boys at Killarney; and a certain -delightful guide, whose winning gaiety was not at all merely -professional. - -Thinking over my country-people, I say, "They are so-and-so," and then I -have a misgiving, and I say, "But, after all, they are not so-and-so." - -They are the most generous people in the world. They enjoy to the -fullest the delight of giving; and what a good delight that is! I pity -the ungiving people. You will receive more gifts in Ireland in a -twelvemonth than in a lifetime out of it. The first instinct of Irish -liking or loving is to give you something. The giving instinct runs -through all classes. If you sit down in a cabin and see an old piece of -lustre-ware or something else of the sort, do not admire it unless you -mean to accept it; for it will be offered to you, not in the Spanish way -which does not expect acceptance, but in the Irish way which does. I -have many little bits of china given so, usually the one thing of any -consideration or value the donor possessed. I once sought to buy an old -china dish, much flawed and cracked by hot ovens, in a Dublin hotel, as -much to save it from following its fellows to destruction as for any -other reason. The owner would not sell the dish, but he offered it for -my acceptance in such a way that I could not refuse. When I go back to -my old home, the cottagers bring a few new-laid eggs or a griddle-cake -for my acceptance. I have a friend in an Irish village whose income from -an official source is 10 a year. She has a cottage, a few hens, and -enough grass for a cow when she can get one. Her gifts come at -Christmas, at Easter, on St. Patrick's Day, and on some special, private -feasts of my own--eggs, sweets, flowers, a bit of lace, or a fine -embroidered handkerchief, and, in times of illness, a pair of chickens. -That is royal giving out of so little; and I assure you that it blesses -the giver as well as the recipient. - -On the other hand, the farmers grow thriftier and thriftier. Sir Horace -Plunkett and men like him, truly patriotic Irishmen, are showing them -the way. Successive Land Acts lift them more and more into a position of -security from one of precariousness. They have more money now to put in -the savings-banks. Their prosperity does not mean a higher standard of -living, although that is badly needed. It means more money in the -banks--that is all. - -The Irish are very like the French. If the day should come when they -should learn, like the French, to be thrifty and usurious, I hope I -shall not be there to see it. Better--a thousand times better--that they -should remain royal wastrels to the end. - -As yet we need not fear it. Still, if you ask a drink of water at a -mountain cabin in the poorest parts of Ireland, you are given milk; and -_do not offer to pay for it_, lest you sink to the lowest place in the -estimation of these splendid givers. - -The hospitality is truly splendid. There is a saying in Ireland that -they always put an extra bit in the pot for "the man coming over the -hill." It is an unheard-of thing that you should call at an Irish house -and not be asked if "you've a mouth on you." If your visit be within -anything like measurable distance of meal-time you will be obliged to -stay for the meal. - -In England, when people are poor, or comparatively so, or feel the need -of retrenchment, they "do not entertain." It is almost the first form of -retrenchment which suggests itself to the Englishman; whereas to curtail -his hospitalities would be the last form of retrenchment to an Irishman, -and you will be entertained generously and lavishly by people you know -to be poor. The Englishman's different way of looking at the matter is -no doubt partly due to the fact that he is a much more domestic person -than the Irishman, and depends mainly on his family life for his -happiness and pleasure. Now, the French do not give hospitality at all -outside the large family circle, so that in that regard at least the -Irish will have a long way to travel before they touch with the French. - -[Illustration: OFF TO AMERICA.] - -I have said that the Irish are not domestic. They are gregarious, but -not domestic. The Irishman depends a deal on the neighbours; he has no -such way of enclosing himself within a little fortified place of home -against all the ills of the world as has the Englishman. Irish mothers, -like Irish nurses, are often tenderly, exquisitely soft and warm; but -the young ones will fly out of the nest for all that. Perhaps the art of -making the home pleasant is not an Irish art. Perhaps it is the -gregariousness, general and not particular--at least, general in the -sense of embracing the parish and not the family. To the young Irish and -a good many of their elders the home is dull. They go off to America, -leaving the old people to loneliness, because there is no amusement. -They do not make their own interests, as the slower, less vivacious -nations do. The rainy Irish climate seems made for a people who would -find their pleasures indoors. But the Irish will be out and about, -telling good stories and hearing them. They are an artistic people, with -great traditions; yet books or music or conversation will not keep them -at home. If they cannot have the neighbours in, they will go out to the -neighbours. - -They are very religious, and accept the invisible world with a -thoroughness and simplicity of belief which they would say themselves is -their most precious inheritance. The Celt is no materialist. He does not -love success or riches; most of those whom he holds in esteem have been -neither successful nor rich. Money is not the passport to his -affections. He ought never to go away, and, alas! he goes away in -thousands! Contact with the selfish, money-getting materialism has power -to destroy the spiritual qualities of the Celt, once he is outside -Ireland. When he comes back--a prosperous Irish-American--he is no -longer the Celt we loved. And he does come back: that is one of his -contradictions. The home he has left behind because of its dulness, the -arid patch of mountain-land, the graves of his people, call him back -again at the moment when one would have said every bond with them was -loosened. - -He is full of sentiment, yet he makes mercenary marriages. The Irish -match-making customs are well known. In the South and West of Ireland -the prospective bride is bargained over with no more sentiment than if -she were a heifer. She may be "turned down" for an iron pot or a -feather-bed which her mother will not give up to supplement the dowry. -Satin cheeks and speedwell eyes and a head of silk like the raven's -plume will not count against a bullock extra with a yellow spinster of -greater fortune, or is not supposed to count; for sometimes Cupid steps -in, although the match-making customs are usually accepted as -unquestioningly as a similar institution is by the French. And even in -such unpromising soil flowers of love and tenderness will spring up. -Under my hand I have a letter from an Irish peasant which I think -affords a beautiful refutation of the idea that sentiment and -match-making cannot go together. Here is a passage from it: - -"For the last few weeks I was anxiously engaged at match-making, as -matters were going from bad to worse; having no housekeeper, household -jobs and cares prevented me from attending to outside work. Well, at -last my match is made. The marriage is to take place next Thursday. The -'young girl' is twenty-two years, and I thank God that I am perfectly -satisfied with my life-companion-to-be. There were many other matches -introduced to me--far more satisfactory from the financial point of -view, some having 20, some 30, and one 40 more fortune than my -intended wife has, with whom I am getting but 90, while I must 'by -will' give 120 to my brother, leaving a deficit of 30; but, somehow, I -could not satisfy my mind with the other 'good girls' if they had over -200--nay, at all. And the poet's words were true when he said something -like 'pity is akin to love'; pity I felt first for my intended wife, -with her simple, yet wise, unaffected ways, not used to world's ways and -wiles, 'an unspoiled child of Nature,' never flirted, never went to -dances, with the bloom of her maidenhood fresh and pure, and fair and -bright. When but a last 5 was between myself and her people _re_ -fortune, her very words to me were: 'Wisha, God help me! if I'm worth -anything, I ought to be worth that 5.' That expression of hers stung me -to the quick, so openly, frankly, and innocently uttered, and 'I'm -getting other accounts, but would not marry anyone but you.' Well, the -end was in that one night, sitting beside her in her father's house, the -feeling of pity changed to a warmer feeling, thank God; for if it -didn't, I would rather live and die single than marry against my will. -''Tisn't riches makes happiness.' I've read somewhere that when want -comes in at the door, love flies out of the window; but I don't believe -it--I don't believe it. And my brother is kind; he will be giving me -time to pay the balance, 30, by degrees." - -The Irish are notoriously brave, yet they have a fear of public opinion -unknown to an Englishman. Underneath their charmingly gay and open -manner there is a self-consciousness, a self-mistrust. For all their -keen sense of humour, they cannot bear laughter directed at themselves. -They dread to be made absurd more than anything else in this world. -They are responsive and sympathetic, yet too witty not to be somewhat -malicious; and they are warm and generous, yet not always so reliably -kind as a duller, slower people. They are irritable, so they are less -tolerant of children and animals, although they make excellent nurses, -as I have said. They have no tolerance at all for slowness and -stupidity, very little for ugliness or want of charm. They adore beauty, -though it doesn't count for much in their most intimate relations; and -it is not, therefore, the paradise of plain women. - -I have not touched on a hundredth part of their contradictoriness, which -makes the Irish so eternally unexpected and interesting. They can be, as -they say themselves, "contrairy" when they choose--and they often -choose. Yet, when all is said and done, they are the pleasantest people -in the world. Nor is their pleasantness insincere. They are pleasant -because they feel pleasant; and an Irish man or woman will pay you an -amazing, fresh, audacious compliment which an Englishman might feel, but -would rather die than say. - -Did I say that the Celt was gay and melancholy? He is exquisitely gay -and most profoundly melancholy. He is in touch with the other world, and -yet desperately afraid of it, or of the passage to it, being a creature -of fine nerves and apprehension; whence he will joke about death to -cover up his real repugnance, and yet hold the key to heaven as securely -as though it were the other side of the wall, with a lonesome passage to -be traversed. It is the lonesomeness of death which makes it terrible to -the gregarious Irishman, although he knows that the other side of the -wall the kinsmen and friends and neighbours await him, friendly and -loving as of old. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -SOUTH OF DUBLIN - - -If you go down from Dublin by the wonderful coast-line or through the -beautiful country inland which runs by the base of the mountains, you -will come upon beautiful scenery, and find a population not at all -characteristically Irish. The beauty of Wicklow, its wonderful woods, -its deep glens, its placid waters, its glorious mountains, is only less -than the beauty of Killarney, which is an earthly paradise. But in -Wicklow, in Wexford, in Waterford, the people's blood is mixed. -Sometimes it is Celt upon Celt, the Welsh Celt upon the Irish. There are -charming people in Wicklow and Wexford and Waterford, but to those -counties belongs also what I call the cynical Irishman--the Irishman -without charm of manner, the "independent" Irishman, who will not take -off his hat to rank or age or sex; yet he is Irish enough in the core of -him. And Wicklow and Wexford, with Kildare and part of Meath, were the -scenes of the Rebellion in 1798. Perhaps the memory of those days helps -to make the Irishman of the south-east corner of Ireland what he is, and -that is often something very unlike the gracious Irishman of the South -and West. He has his resentments. I have heard an Irishman say: "A -Wexford man will never look at a Tipperary man, because Tipperary didn't -rise in the Rebellion." The Rebellion, which was hatched in the North by -Ulster Presbyterians, broke out, after all, in Wexford, and on a -religious, and a Catholic, cause of quarrel. There could have been -nothing farther from the thoughts of the leaders of the united Irishmen -than to make a religious war, but that was what the Rebellion of 1798 -turned out to be--a religious war; a war between Catholic and -Protestant, precipitated not by English intriguers, say those who know -well, but by outrageous insults to the Catholic altars, led in many -cases by priests on the rebel side, foredoomed to failure in spite of -the desperate courage of the peasantry who for a time swept all before -them. One always thinks of Wexford and the Rebellion simultaneously. It -was a time of cynical contrasts. Think of the poor peasants, maddened by -outrages to their altars, led by their priests, carrying on the -Rebellion planned by Protestants of the North--by leaders deeply imbued -with the French revolutionary spirit, which was certainly not Christian! -Think of the Western peasants, when Humbert and his men landed at -Killala, hailing those good comrades of the Revolution as -fellow-Catholics, coming to meet them decked out in religious emblems! -One of the strangest and most cynical of these contrasts was the fact -that while the peasant army fought desperately at New Ross, where they -all but carried the day, on the other side of the Barrow River men were -ploughing peacefully in their fields, because it was Wexford that was up -and not their county. I suppose it is the clan system which -differentiates Irishmen by their counties and their towns. Dublin is -heterogeneous, perhaps. It has, at all events, few distinguishing -characteristics, whereas Cork and Waterford men are as widely apart -almost as though they were of different nationalities; and both are -agreed in despising Dublin, although Dublin has made history in the last -hundred years--national history--more than either. - -[Illustration: A WICKLOW GLEN.] - -The men who were the first begetters of the Rebellion, and the men who -saved Ireland for the English Crown, were alike men of Anglo-Irish -blood. The Rebellion was put down by the Irish yeomanry, as English -statesmen had to acknowledge, however little they liked the methods of -their allies. The yeomanry did not make war with rose-water, any more -than they precipitated the Rebellion by gentle methods. It is a bloody -and brutal chapter of Irish history, and the memories of it accounted -for the religious animosities which I remember in my youth, which are -fading out as the memories of the Rebellion are fading. The year 1798 -has ceased to be a landmark in Irish life. When I was a child, there yet -lived people who could tell at first hand or second hand of the terrible -happenings of those days. People used to say, fixing an age: "He was -born the year of the Rebellion." Now all that has passed away. Even in -those times it was becoming more customary to date events by the year of -the Big Wind, 1839. Now, with the establishment of parish -registers--which did not come in in Ireland till the sixties--and the -spread of newspapers and cheap knowledge generally, such landmarks are -no longer required; and the Big Wind of 1903 has wiped out the memory of -its predecessor. - -In the mountains of Wicklow the insurgents of those days found their -refuges and their fastnesses and their graves. I remember having seen -somewhere near Roundwood, in the Wicklow Mountains, in the midst of a -ploughed field a long strip of greenest grass covering the grave of many -rebels. The plough had gone round it ever since then, but not a sod of -it had been turned up; it had remained inviolate. - -A great deal of Irish history gathers round the Rebellion--_the_ -Rebellion, the Irish yet call it, as though there had never been any -other. The men who made it were literary men, in a more vital sense than -the men of '48, who were also literary. Two books of that day stand out -pre-eminently--Lord Edward Fitzgerald's "Life and Letters," edited by -Thomas Moore, and the Journal of Theobald Wolfe Tone. Lord Edward had an -exquisite style. His letters are the frank revelation of a beautiful and -gallant and innocent mind and heart. Without deliberation, without -knowledge, his family letters achieved the highest art. They are -immortal, imperishable things. - -Then Tone's Journal is as remarkable a human document. Tone swaggers -through these pages better than any hero of romance. Life, after all, -is the greatest artist, and one does not say, "Here is a true Dumas -hero! Here is a true Stevenson hero!" For Life is better than her -children. - -Nearly all the United Irish leaders left memoirs or journals behind -them. There was, perhaps, something of the self-consciousness of the -French Revolution in this keeping a journal in the face of battle. -Anyhow, we are grateful to Holt, to Teeling, to Cloney, for keeping -alive for us those days and those men. - -In Lady Sarah Napier's letters you also get most vivid glimpses of the -Rebellion--as, indeed, you do in the letters of the whole Leinster -family. Mary Ledbetter, that gentle Quakeress, of Ballitore, has told -her experiences of the Rebellion in Kildare; there is Bishop Stock's -Narrative of the French landing at Killala and those days in which he -entertained willy-nilly the French leaders and found them the most -considerate of guests. In fact, there is a whole library of Rebellion -literature. - -I ask pardon for treating Wicklow and Wexford as though they were the -theatre of '98, and nothing more; but, indeed, in the story of Wexford -the Rebellion stands up like White Mountain and Mount Leinster, and one -finds little else to say. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE NORTH - - -Between Dublin and Newry there is not much to see or to remember except -that Cromwell sacked Drogheda with a thoroughness, and that at Dundalk -Edward Bruce, the brother of Robert, was crowned King of Ireland. The -Mourne Mountains and Carlingford Lough bring us back to characteristic -Ireland. Beyond them one enters the manufacturing districts--that -north-east corner of Ireland which no Celt looks upon as Ireland at all. -In speech, in character, in looks, the people become Scotch and not -Irish. One has crossed the border and Celtic Ireland is left behind. - -In the north-east corner of Ulster they are all busy money-making and -money-getting. The North of Ireland has admirable qualities--thrift, -energy, industry, ambition, capacity. In other parts of Ireland you find -these qualities here and there; they are mainly, but not altogether, the -qualities of the Anglo-Irish--that is, in so far as they are a business -asset. The Celt has no real capacity for money-making, though at the -wrong end of the virtue of thrift--that dreariest of the virtues--he may -accumulate it. He will put an enormous deal of energy into something -that does not pay him in hard cash. Honorary positions are greedily -sought after by the Irish everywhere. They will run any number of -societies for nothing, will do the business of Leagues, of the Poor Law, -of the County Councils. The energy shown by the Celt in doing the public -business would enrich him if applied to his own. He has a large capacity -for public business, and an extraordinary readiness to do it, which is, -I suppose, the reason why he does the public business of America, while -non-Irish Americans sit by and grumble at his way of doing it. - -In Ireland and in America he does hard manual labour, but somehow the -genius of finance is not his. His hard work is on the land in one form -or another. Now and again he may build up quite a considerable fortune -in petty shop-keeping--the big traders are nearly all Anglo-Irish--but -when he does, his sons become professional men and the business ceases -to be. One can hardly imagine in Celtic Ireland what occurs every day in -English business life, where the son of a successful business man may be -a public-school man, a University man, and have had all the advantages -of wealth, and yet succeed his father in the business. And his son -succeeds him, and so on. This, in Celtic Ireland, would, I fear, be -taken as indicative of a pettifogging spirit. The Anglo-Irishman, on the -contrary, succeeds to the business his father has made, even though he -be a University man; and the Grafton Street shops are often run by men -who are graduates and honourmen of the University, and yet do not -disdain to be seen in their shops. - -There is nothing Irish about North-East Ulster except the country -itself, which does not materially alter its character, because it is -studded with factories. From the streets of Belfast you see the Cave -Hill, as from easy-going Dublin you see the Dublin Mountains. Perhaps -there is something of exuberance caught from the Celt in the -paraphernalia and ceremonial of the Orange Society. Who can say how much -of poetry it may not mean, that crowded hour of glorious life which -comes about mid-July, when men who have worked side by side in amity all -the rest of the year suddenly become bitter enemies, when the wearing of -an Orange sash and the sight of an Orange lily stir a fever in the -blood? - -Apart from such occasions, they are given in Belfast to minding their -own business, and minding it very well. The Belfast man is very shrewd, -but he has a great simplicity withal. He has none of the uppish notions -of the Celt, and though he makes money he does not make it to display -it. He is blunt and brusque in his speech and manner, and so not unlike -his Lancashire brother. He lives simply. In public matters he has the -priceless advantage, in Ireland, of knowing what he wants; and he -usually gets it, unless his demands be too outrageous. He is a hard man -of business, but in his human relationships he is kind and sincere. I -have known exiles of Dublin who went to Belfast in tears, and for the -first months or years of their residence were always sighing after -Dublin. When, however, they came to know the man of the North--he takes -a good deal of knowing--nothing would induce them to return to Dublin. - -Like his Scottish progenitors, he stands by the Bible. There is as much -Bible-reading in the fine red-brick mansions of Belfast as there is in -Scotland. He does not produce literature. The more artistic parts of -Ireland look down on him as one to whom "boetry and bainting" are as -unacceptable as they were to the Second George. But he encourages solid -learning, and he endows seats of learning as generously as does the -American millionaire, who in this respect offers an example to his -English brother. The Belfast man has the Scottish love of education. He -has many of the homespun Scottish virtues, and much less than the -Scottish love of money. - -At the very gates of Belfast you find the Irish country. The Glens of -Antrim are as Irish as Limerick or Clare. They are very beautiful, and -not much exploited. There is also the Giant's Causeway to see. The -legend of its construction is that Finn, the Irish giant, invited a -Scotch giant over to fight him, and generously provided the Causeway for -him to cross by; but he played a nasty trick on him, for he pretended to -the Scottish giant when he came that he was his own little boy. "If you -are the little son, what must your father be?" the Scottish giant is -reported to have said before taking to his heels. - -I do not believe the story. I believe that the Scottish giant came and -stayed. You see his children all over North-East Ulster. - -There are women-poets whom one associates with the North--Moira O'Neill -of the Glens, and Alice Milligan, a daughter of Belfast. They are both - - "Kindly Irish of the Irish - Neither Saxon nor Italian," - -nor Scottish. - -[Illustration: THE RIVER LEE.] - - - - -Cork and Thereabouts - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -CORK AND THEREABOUTS - - -There is something of rich and racy association about the very name of -Cork--something that suggests joviality, wit, a warm southern -temperament. Corkmen only out of all Ireland hold together. The rest of -Ireland may be fissiparous, disunited. Corkmen cleave closer than -Scotsmen to one another, and to be a Corkman is to another Corkman a -cloak that covers a multitude of sins. A Corkman in Dublin will have -friends in all sorts of unlikely places. What matter though a man be in -a humble rank of life--a cabman, a policeman, a postman, even a -scavenger! So he be a Corkman, he has an appeal to the heart of his -brother Corkman. It is a Freemasonry. There is nothing else like it in -Ireland, nor anywhere else, so far as I know; for the Scotsman coming -into England may draw other Scotsmen to follow him, but in the Scotch -sticking together there is less real affection than there is in the case -of the Corkman. To be able to exchange memories of the Mardyke, of the -River Lee, of Shandon and Sunday's Well, is to make Corkmen brothers -all the world over. Cork looks on itself as the real capital of Ireland, -and has always its eye on a day when Dublin will be dispossessed. - -It has a most excellent situation on the River Lee, and is surrounded by -all manner of natural beauties. There is plenty of business stirring, -and there is a good deal of opulence in Cork, where, Corkmen being men -of taste, they display it in their houses, their way of living and on -the persons of their beautiful women, with the irresistible Cork brogue -to crown all their other charms. Cork is nothing if not artistic. She -has produced artists of all descriptions--poets, painters, great -newspaper men (was not Delane of the _Times_ a Corkman?), musicians, -sculptors, orators, preachers. The words roll off the Cork tongue sweet -as honey. There is something extraordinarily rich, gay and alluring -about Cork and Cork people. They were always audacious. They set up -Perkin Warbeck as a Pretender to the English Crown, clad him in silks -and velvets, and demanded his acknowledgment at the hands of the Lord -Deputy. I do not know that as a city Cork took a great part in any of -the many Irish rebellions. It would make a city of diplomatists because -of its honeyed tongue. Queen Elizabeth, they say, was the first one to -talk of Blarney, which is a Cork commodity. There was a certain -McCarthy, Lord of Blarney, who would not come in and submit to the -Queen's forces, though week by week he promised to come and kept the -Queen's anger off by cozening words. "It is all Blarney," the Queen came -to say of fair words that meant nothing; but that is a derivation I -somewhat suspect. I do not know what Cork was doing in the Desmond -Rebellion, of the results of which Spenser has left us so harrowing a -description. She was perhaps enjoying herself after the fashion of that -day. Spenser married a Cork-woman, and has enshrined her in the -"Epithalamion," the most beautiful love-poem in the English language. -Cork has its links with the Golden Age of England, for Raleigh was at -Youghal, and Spenser at Kilcolman close by; and in Raleigh's house at -Youghal they show you the oriel in which Spenser sat and read the -"Farie Queene" to his host, the Shepherd of the Ocean. Youghal and all -that part of the country round about Cork is steeped in traditions and -memories. St. Mary's Collegiate Church at Youghal might be in an English -town, and there are malls and promenades in those parts, with high, -crumbling houses, which suggest the English civilization of the Middle -Ages and not the Irish civilization before the Norman Conquest. The -Normans were great church-builders, but of their churches, as in the -case of the old Abbey of St. Francis at Youghal, there remain now only -ruins--a naked gable standing up amid a wilderness of graves, buried in -coarse grasses, which, when I was there, had a greater decency towards -the dead than had the living. For it is strange that the Irish, who love -the dead, have little piety towards their graves. - -From Youghal Sir Walter Raleigh sailed away to Virginia on his last -disastrous voyage. Spenser had gone back to London earlier than that, -heart-broken by the loss of his little son, who was burnt to death in a -fire at Kilcolman Castle. Raleigh and Spenser had received grants of the -lands of the attainted Desmonds. Very little profit either had of them, -and Raleigh's lands passed to the Earl of Cork, commonly called "the -Great," whose flaring chapel destroys the quiet of St. Mary's dim aisles -and chancel. Never was there so worldly a monument as this of Robert -Boyle, his mother, his two wives, and his nine children, all in -hideously painted and decorated Italian marble. The fierce eyes of the -great Earl are something to remember with dismay. - -I recall the evidence the great Earl adduced to prove that Sir Walter -did really hand him over his Irish estates on the eve of that journey -to Virginia--for a small consideration of money and plenishing for the -expedition. "If you do not take the lands, some Scot will have them," -said, or is reported to have said, Sir Walter, which reminds us that -Jamie had succeeded Elizabeth, and was already transplanting his -Scots--Jamie, who was to keep so brilliant a bird as Sir Walter in so -squalid a cage as a prison till he made up his mind to send him to the -block. Youghal is haunted by Sir Walter and Spenser. My memories of the -place in a windy autumn are brightened by sudden gleams, as of splendid -attire and golden olive faces with the Elizabethan ruff and the -Elizabethan pointed beard. - -The Blackwater, which runs through Youghal, dropping into the sea at -that point, had at Rhincrew Point its House of Knights Templars. From -Youghal they also sailed away in search of El Dorado, but a heavenly -one. May they have found it! - -And also there is Templemichael, of the Earls of Desmond, the southern -branch of the Fitzgeralds, which Cromwell battered down for "dire -insolence." There is a story of a Desmond lord who was buried across the -water at Ardmore, the holy place of St. Declan, where there is a -pilgrimage and a patronage to this day. But holy as Ardmore was and is, -Earl Gerald could not sleep there. He wanted to be back at -Templemichael, where his young wife lay in her lonely grave. So that -night after night there came a terrible cry, "Garault Arointha! Garault -Arointha!"--that is to say: "Give Gerald a ferry!" So at last some of -his faithful followers rowed over by night, took up the body of Earl -Gerald, and carried it back to Templemichael and to the dead Countess's -side. And after that Earl Gerald slept in peace. - -My memory of Youghal in that far-away windy autumn is compounded of -three or four things. There was purple wistaria hanging in great masses -over the walls of the college which was the foundation of one of the -Desmonds. There was provision there for so many singing men--twenty, was -it?--who were to sing in St. Mary's choir. The great Earl of Cork had a -great maw, one that never suffered from indigestion. The revenues of St. -Mary's College went the same way as Sir Walter's slice of the Desmond -lands. Then, again, in a little shop-window of the town, there was a -glorious show of fruit--great scarlet-skinned tomatoes, gorgeous plums -and pears and apples, which reminded one that Raleigh had planted -orchards at Affane, on the Blackwater. As a rule, fruit is sadly to seek -in a small Irish town, although Cork produces some of the finest fruit -I have ever seen. Then, again, there was a room in Raleigh's house, -Myrtle Grove, unlit save for the flicker of firelight, the darkness all -about us, and an old voice bidding us to notice the earthy smell, which -was supposed to enter the room from a subterranean passage that led to -St. Mary's. - -Again, I have another widely different memory. It is of a fine, tall, -beautifully-complexioned girl standing behind the counter of a draper's -shop, her shining red-golden head showing against a background of little -plaid shawls and kerchiefs, while she lamented in her wailing southern -brogue the fact that no one could hope to get married in Youghal, unless -one had 300 to buy an old "widda-man"; and they were all the men that -were going. - -I like to get back from Youghal and its ghosts, and Rosanna, who never -thought of rebelling against the marriage customs of her forbears, to -cheerful Cork of the living and not the dead, with her tramcars, her -jingles--the curious covered car which takes the place of the outside -car in other Irish towns--her citizens laughing and button-holing each -other with a greater gaiety than the Dubliners; her excellent shops, her -beautiful girls promenading Patrick Street, her club-houses, her -churches, her Queen's College, and all the rest of it, down to her -river with its busy steamers. Cork's citizens live outside her gates, at -Monkstown, at Blackrock, at Glenbrook; and the busy steamers carry them -to and fro by the loveliest of waterways. "Are the steamers punctual?" I -asked a Cork friend. "Is it punctual?" repeated he. "They're the most -punctual things in Ireland, for they always get in before their time." - -Father Mathew is one of Cork's memories; Father Prout is another; Dr. -Maginn is another. But the list of Cork's worthies is a long one, and I -shall not enter upon it here. - -[Illustration: RALEIGH'S HOUSE, MYRTLE GROVE.] - -Cork has the most enervating climate for one who comes to it from more -northern latitudes. It is always soft and warm, and often wet. "Good -heavens!" said John Mitchel, when he came back from twenty years or so -of Australia, gliding in by Spike Island in that same silver mist of -rain in which he had gone out, "isn't that shower over yet?" The flowers -are wonderful in Cork, as well as the fruit. I have seen the suburban -gardens of Corkmen a luxuriance of vivid, closely packed, overflowing -blossom. Myrtles and fuchsias grow in the open air. There are hedges of -fuchsias at Killarney. There are hydrangeas also; but the same is true -of Dublin and its precincts. No one coming in from outside has energy to -do anything in Cork. But the Corkman lacks nothing of energy, nothing -of the joy of life. He is a keen business man, and there is plenty of -industrial enterprise. He is interested in the affairs of the world at -large and of Cork in particular. He has his enthusiasms. He is a -tremendous politician, and does not mind being on the losing side so -long as it is the right one. He is a sportsman and a bit of a gambler; -he makes love and is a good friend. The place is full of wit and gaiety -and humour. His standard of living when he has money, or ought to have -it, is an unusually high one for Ireland. Some of those successful -merchants live, I am told, like merchant princes. He is lavish and -generous, and fond of display--altogether a rich, abundant, -highly-coloured character. He lives in an atmosphere of incessant wit -and humour. Hardly a man in Cork but has his nickname. "There goes Billy -Boulevard," you hear, and you are told that the gentleman so designated -desired to embellish Patrick Street with trees. But it was in Dublin -that they called one who had made his money in pneumatic tyres, and was -exalted above his humbler neighbours, "Lord Tyre and Side-on." - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -GALWAY - - -Galway is so synonymous with racy Irish life that a peep at Ireland must -be incomplete unless it includes a peep at Galway. It is full of the -strangest monuments of the past. It was once a town of the Irishry, in -the O'Flaherty country. But with the Norman Conquest there came in that -group of Anglo-Norman families known as the Tribes, who in course of -time went the way of all their compeers, becoming more Irish than the -Irish. "Lord!" said Edmund Spenser, "how quickly doth that country alter -men's natures!" The Tribes were, and are--for happily there are still -the Tribes of Galway--thirteen, viz.: Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, -D'Arcy, Font, French, Joyce, Kirwan, Lynch, Martin, Morris, and -Skerrett. These Tribes became responsible in time for so much of the -wild and picturesque life of the Irish gentry of the eighteenth -century--the duelling, the drinking, the racing, the gambling, the -general devil-may-care life--that Galway looms more largely, perhaps, -than any town in the social history of Ireland. Galway drew up a code -for duellists known as the Galway Code; and in the irresponsible life of -the eighteenth century, such as you find in Miss Edgeworth's "Castle -Rackrent" and in Lever's novels, the life which the Encumbered Estates -Act put a period to, the names of the Tribes figure oftener than more -Celtic names. For the picturesque wildness of Irish life was the -wildness of the settlers rather than the wildness of the native Irish. - -However, in the great days of Galway's trade with Spain and other -continental ports, traces of which are scattered all over the old ruined -city, which is as much Spanish as it is Irish, the Tribes were just -merchant princes, not anticipating the time when, _more Hibernico_, they -should fling trade to the winds and become the maddest crew of -dare-devils known in the social life of any country. And here I find, in -the record of the duelling and drinking days, traces and indications of -the English descent of the roysterers. For certainly there was a lack of -humour in the actors, though none for the spectator; there was a -solemnity--not always a drunken solemnity--in the way their pranks were -performed that was not Celtic; for the Celt has a terrible sense of the -ridiculous. Doubtless it was from his Anglo-Irish betters that the Celt -derived the habit of "trailing his coat" through a fair when he was -spoiling for a fight, though, to do him justice, he practised it only -when he was drunk. The Anglo-Irish duellists inaugurated the custom. -When on no pretext could they find a friend or neighbour to kill or be -killed by, they went out and "trailed the coat," like the gentleman who -rode on a tailless horse, with his face to the crupper, and, seeing an -unwary stranger smile, immediately challenged him, and rode home in huge -delight to look to his pistols. They were extremely solemn over their -pranks. One wonders how often the Celtic servants had a smile behind -their hand at such strange goings-on of their masters, which would not -have been possible to the self-conscious Celt. - -Over one of the gates of Galway was the pious legend, "From the -ferocious O'Flaherties, good Lord deliver us!" I have heard of other -inscriptions referring to other Irish septs over the remaining gates of -the town, but those I think are apocryphal. The fact remains that the -Tribes, having seized the town of the Irish after their rapacious Norman -manner, were obliged to wall it against the O'Flaherties, and doubtless -often slept ill at night because of the wild Irish battering at their -gates, as did their brothers of the English pale up in Dublin. - -Galway would at that time have been well worth sacking. A traveller of -the early seventeenth century reports: "The merchants of Galway are rich -and great adventurers at sea: their commonalitie is composed of the -descendants of the ancient English families of the towne: and rairlie -admit of any new English among them, and never of any of the Irish; they -keep good hospitalitie and are kind to strangers, and in their manner of -entertainment and in fashioninge and apparellynge themselves and their -wives do most preserve the ancient manners and state of annie towne that -ever I saw." - -They had their enactments against the Irish, including the MacWilliam -Burkes, who had gone over to the Irish, bag and baggage: - -"That none of the towne buy cattle out of the country but only of true -men. - -"That no man of the towne shall sell galley, bote or barque to an -Irishman. - -"That no person shall give or sell to the Irish any munition as -hand-povins, calivres, poulter, leade, nor salt-peter, nor yet large -bowes, cross-bowes, cross-bowe strings, nor yearne to make the same, nor -any kind of weapon on payn to forfayt the same and an hundred -shyllinges. - -"If anie man being an Irishman to brag and boste upon the towne, to -forfayt 12 pence. - -"That no man of this towne shall ostle or receive into their house at -Christmasse or Easter nor no feast elles, anny of the Burkes -MacWilliams, the Kellies, nor no septs elles, without the licence of the -Maior and Council on payn to forfayt 5. That neither O' ne Mac shall -strutt or swagger through the streets of Galway." - -You still find traces of the commerce of the Tribes with Spain, not only -in the old Spanish buildings of the town, but in the black Spanish eyes -and hair of the people. I remember to have been struck in Donegal by a -dignity, a loftiness of bearing, as well as by a height and stateliness -of the peasant people that made one murmur "Spanish" to one's own ear. - -One of the sights of Galway is the ruins of the house from the window of -which James Lynch Fitz Stephen, a Chief Magistrate of Galway in 1493, -hanged his only son for murder with his own hand, lest the townspeople -should rescue him. The house is called The Cross Bones nowadays, and is -situated most appropriately in Dead-Man's Lane. There remains but an old -wall, with a couple of doorways having the pointed Spanish arches and -some ornate window-spaces above. There is a tablet on the wall, bearing -a skull and cross-bones, with the inscription: - - "Remember Deathe, - Vaniti of vanitis, all is but vaniti." - -Some people believe that this Lynch is the "onlie begetter" of Lynch -Law. This, however, I do not believe, and I think it more likely to have -been derived from a Lynch of the mining-camps in Southern California, -who was the first to promulgate and put in practice the wild justice of -execution without judge or jury. Anyhow, I cannot see that the example -of James Lynch FitzStephen was an admirable one, and I do not believe -the legend that he died heart-broken as a result of his own stern sense -of justice. - -The palmy days of the Tribes were over with the Reformation, for they -did not cease to be Catholics, and so were in no great favour with the -predominant partner. Galway also stood for the King against the -Parliament, was besieged and taken by the Parliamentary soldiers under -Ludlow, who stabled his horses, according to report, in St. Nicholas's -Cathedral. After that Galway's great prosperity as a trading centre -passed away, and the Tribes scattered among the ferocious O'Flaherties -and others of their sort and became country gentlemen, with a noble -contempt for trade. The situation of Galway, on its magnificent Bay, -still cries out for commerce. The spectacle of Galway as a port of call -for American steamers has dangled before the eyes of the Galwegians for -a long time without being realized, although they made preparations for -it long ago, by building a hotel that would house a _Mauretania_-load of -travellers. - -Only the other day I listened to a Galway Tribesman conversing with -someone who had lived in Galway, and who asked after the old places and -persons. "What's become of So-and-so?" "He's just the same as ever; not -a bit of change in him. He comes home every night strapped to the -outside car to keep him from falling off." "And what's become of -So-and-so?" "Oh, he's done very well for himself. His father says, -'Mac's all right; he's got the run of a kitchen in Yorkshire,' meaning -that he married an English heiress." - -This conversation made me feel that to some extent Galway stands where -it did. - -[Illustration: GLENCOLUMBKILLE HEAD. _PAGE 70._] - -The Claddagh fishing village by Galway is something not to be missed. It -keeps itself to itself, with a reserve Celtic or Spanish or anything -else you like, but not English. It used to be ruled by its own King, who -was just a fisherman like his subjects, and was not exalted in his -manner of living by his royal state. He was chosen for his governing -powers and his mental and moral qualities, and his subjects were ruled -by him with a despotism that was never anything but fatherly. They -intermarried, too, among themselves--I do not know if this usage -survives--and their ring of betrothal, handed on from one generation to -another, has a design of two hands holding up a heart. At the Claddagh -they still have the Blessing of the Sea, but they will not make a show -of it, and even the Galway people are kept in ignorance of the time when -the ceremony takes place. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -DONEGAL OF THE STRANGERS - - -It once fell to my lot to make a hasty scamper through Donegal from end -to end; that is to say, as far as possible, I made the circuit of the -county, beginning with Ballyshannon, following the coast-line, with -divergences, from Donegal to Gweedore, going round by Bloody Foreland, -by Falcarragh and Dunfanaghy, and ending up by way of Letterkenny at -Ballyshannon again. I took ten or twelve days to do it--perhaps a -fortnight--staying each night at an inn. To Gweedore I devoted the best -portion of a week. Now, in that scamper I had a very characteristic peep -at Ireland. I missed, indeed, the wild gaiety of the South. Donegal -people are somewhat sorrowful. But I found plenty of types and racy life -nevertheless. - -It is a good many years ago now; and travelling in Donegal has been -simplified since then by the light railways with which the names of Mr. -Arthur Balfour and Mr. Gerald Balfour are gratefully associated. When I -was there I drove through the country, only taking the train from -Letterkenny to Ballyshannon on my return journey; and it was an -excellent, though somewhat expensive, way of seeing the country. -However, the hospitality was so wonderful that one only slept and -breakfasted in one's hotel. For the rest, the kind priests were only too -eager to give hospitality to myself and my companion. - -At Ballyshannon we stayed a night in one of those enormous old hotels -with a maze of winding passages, which suggest to one in the dead waste -and middle of the night that in case of a fire one never could get out. -The next day we came upon the first of the priests, who carried us off -to see everything that could be seen of Ballyshannon, including a visit -to Abbey Assaroe, which we knew already in William Allingham's poetry. -To the grief of these kind friends of ours, we insisted on going off the -same afternoon to Donegal town, to which we were driven by "Wullie"--the -first "Wullie"--a red-haired, taciturn youth, who suspected us of -laughing at him and was closer than an oyster. Your English man or woman -is the truly expansive person. When you want to get at anything from an -Irishman you've got to sit down and wait for the charmed moment when his -suspicion of you is put to sleep. Dr. Douglas Hyde got his Religious -Songs and Love Songs of Connacht by sitting over the turf fire in a -cabin, taking a "shaugh" of the pipe and offering a fill of it, passing -round a flask of poteen, perhaps. It might be hours, and it might be -days, and it might be weeks before you broke down the barrier of -reserve, well worth the breaking-down if you have "worlds enough and -time." You can't travel twenty miles in an English third-class carriage -before you have the intimate confidence of your fellow-passengers. You -are told which relative died of cancer, with harrowing details, which is -in a madhouse, and which in gaol; for the plain English people are the -most unreserved in the world, while the Irish are the most reticent. -And if you win a flow of talk from the Irish peasants, be sure they are -talking round what they have to tell by way of leading you away from it; -for an Irishman uses language to conceal his thoughts. - -We hadn't "worlds enough and time" for "Wullie." His lips were -tight-locked from Ballyshannon to Donegal. - -The next day we saw what was to be seen of the Castle, under the -guidance of the parish priest, whom we met walking in the Diamond. We -introduced ourselves to him. He was a delightful, humorous, stately, -kindly old man, and he looked at us when he met us with an eye that -asked: "Who are you and what is your business in Donegal?" It is a way -the priests have in the remote parts of Ireland, where they are -everything to their flocks. Being reassured, he gave his day to our -entertainment, taking us to see some of his parishioners when he had -shown us all the town contained of interest. - -Killybegs I remember as a beautiful bay, big enough to take in the whole -English fleet. The next day we went on to Kilcar, where we found our -third priest, who lived in a delightfully clean little cabin with a clay -floor. His housekeeper was barefooted, but he had dainty table -appointments. I remember that he had very good china, and he explained -that his mother had given it to him. He was the son of rather wealthy -people. We had a meal of fish, with a little fruit to follow; and while -we ate it a messenger was out prospecting for the loan of an outside car -for the priest. Sure enough, by the time we had finished the meal the -car was at the door, and our host carried us off to see the Caves of -Muckross, some six miles away. Incidentally, we saw Bunglass, that -magnificent cliff-face where Slieve League drops into the sea. I -remember a visit we paid to a cottage where a father sat at the loom -weaving, the mother was carding wool, and a black-haired daughter was -sprigging muslin by the little narrow square window. A scarlet geranium -in the window seemed to be in her night-black hair, and her tears flowed -when our little priest spoke to her. He told us that her lover had -married a richer girl and gone to America. I can remember quite well -walking up a mountain road where the friendly little lambs came and -trotted a bit of the way with us, and the voice of the young priest as -he told us of the innocence of the people--"not a sin in it from year's -end to year's end," for they were too poor to drink--and how his -ambition was to get away to the East End of London, where there was -something to do for a born fighter. - -A night at the excellent hotel at Carrick and the next day we were at -Glencolumkille, that wild and lonely glen between the mountains and the -sea, with the majestic Glen Head standing out into the Atlantic. In the -Glen are twelve crosses of stone, where pilgrims make the stations in -honour of St. Columba or Columkille, the Dove of the Churches. Above -Lough Gartan, on Eithne's Bed, he was born, and any who lie there shall -not have the pangs of home-sickness; wherefore many emigrants stretch -themselves upon that rocky couch before they cross "the Green Fields to -America." The Glen is full of the noise and thunder of the waves, and -Slieve League lies superbly up in the sky, reminding one of Browning-- - - "The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay." - -At Glencolumkille we met the fourth of our priests--a tall, thin, -Spanish-looking youth, who came to meet us with a collie at his heels. -Glencolumkille is very lonesome. There is only an Irish-speaking peasant -population of the very poorest, and the nearest one with whom our priest -could exchange a word on his own level was some seven Irish miles away. -He gave us an impression of immense loneliness, although his joy at -having someone to entertain irradiated his melancholy, handsome face -with cheerfulness. He was rejoiced that by the greatest of good luck he -had a bit of meat for dinner, for fish is the staple food of the Glen. -He was very much interested in news from the great world, and produced -with some pride a copy of the _Daily Telegraph_, several days old, to -prove that he kept in touch with the world. He told us that he was the -youngest of a large family, and his home was as far away as Dublin. Over -nearly a score of years I have the most vivid impression of the lonely -figure, the dog at his heels, as we left Glencolumkille behind us. He -had made us free of his house and hospitality, and parted from us with -the utmost unwillingness. - -Ardara, Glenties, Dungloe--I think of them, little villages lying -amongst gorgeous mountains, and remember that in those gloomy and -frowning fastnesses the Irish were safe against Cromwell's planters, -since what man who could choose, not being Irish, would desire to live -in such a place? A Donegal farm is something to remember. The one crop -the ground grows freely is stones--stones in millions, boulders as great -sometimes as a small house. There are glens that are nothing but stones -from end to end, about as promising ground as the Giant's Causeway for a -farmer. In such places you may see a little field, the size of a -tablecloth, snatched from the aridity of Nature by the incredible -industry of man. Everywhere in Donegal man asks Nature for bread and she -gives him a stone, unless it be the harvest of the sea, which he -snatches from her at the price of his life, it may be. - -I saw Donegal in April, softened as much as might be by the wild April -showers and the bursts of April sunshine. The clouds and the mountains, -the cliffs and the sea--Slieve League, Errigal, Muckish, Bunglass, Horn -Head, the Glen Head, Tory Island--were all beautiful beyond telling, -with a wild and stormy magnificence of beauty. I try to imagine their -desolation in winter and fail to realize it. - -Ardara I remember by the beauty of Glengesh on an April day, with a -hundred streams running down its sides; and at Ardara we halted on -Sunday, and knelt in the gallery of the church, looking down at the -peasants kneeling in rows on the stone floor before the altar. The doors -were wide open, and birds wheeled in from the sunlight and out again -with flashing wings; and the air was exquisite, fresh and wild and -sweet. - -At Gweedore, as I have said, we tarried nearly a week, held there by the -hospitality of the parish priest, who would have us see everything -thoroughly. We stayed at an idyllic little inn, and were fed on the -best and simplest fare: stirabout, made as only the Irish can make it; -home-made bread; delicious butter, new-laid eggs; little delicate -chickens, with green parsley sauce and boiled bacon, potatoes, and -cabbage, cooked as only the Irish can cook them; for in certain simple -dishes of their own the Irish cannot be beaten. - -[Illustration: A DONEGAL HARVEST.] - -There was a most picturesque waiting-maid, a shy little girl, as pretty -as a picture, who wore a pink cotton frock, and had pink bare feet -showing under it, who had the softest, most appealing of voices. - -At the inn our priest found us, sallying in with his great blackthorn in -his hand to see who were the strange visitors to the Glen. He was a -redoubtable priest--the Law of Gweedore, they called him--and he -sheltered his people as the hen sheltereth her chickens. The Glen was -exquisitely clean from end to end, though starveling poor. But the -priest saw to it that they did not starve. - -For four or five days, perhaps, we abode in this little inn, where the -Glen opens out to the sea. We visited the people in their cottages, -under the guidance of our redoubtable _padre_, and saw all there was to -be seen. His hospitality was unbounded, although at the time there was a -wide and bitter division in politics between us. - -I shall not soon forget the manner of our going. We had come now almost -to the end of our journey, and it was desirable that we should return to -Dublin as quickly as possible. He wanted us to make the journey round by -Bloody Foreland, and we wanted to do it as shortly as possible, striking -inland to meet the mail-car for Letterkenny at, I think, Gortahork. But -we knew better than to say "No" to the Law of Gweedore; so we thought to -slip away early in the morning, and made our arrangements the last thing -at night, after leaving his hospitable roof. - -But the Law of Gweedore knew all that happened in Gweedore. A full hour -before we had appointed for being called we were called. His Reverence -had arranged our conveyance, and _paid for it_--paid also, I think, for -a luncheon-basket. Willy-nilly, we went round by Bloody Foreland and -visited the evicted tenants, crouching under scraws and twigs, in -shelters which suggested the caves of the earth-dwellers rather than -anything fit for man. - -Gortahork I remember as a place where we had a good meal of tea and hot -cakes and eggs, and other things thrown in, for a shilling. And I -remember also the long, long drive to Letterkenny--some forty miles it -was, I seem to remember, but shall not pledge myself to it lest I be -confuted--and how we dashed along the sides of precipices, we on one -side of the car, with our feet almost touching earth, the other side -high in air, being weighted only with empty parcel-post hampers, of -which Donegal needs no great supply; below us--far, far below--a valley -filled in with mighty stones and rocks. The pace was so fast that we -could hardly keep our seats, though well accustomed to that car which -the unlettered English tripper is apt to call "a jolting car"; and the -driver was quite unaware of our discomfort, assuring us with as much -jocularity as a Donegal man permits himself that the horses never were -known to stumble, and that, although an occasional English tourist did -fall off, he or she always "fell soft." - -After all, when I look back to that scamper through Donegal sixteen -years ago, I remember the mountains and the priests. Monuments of a -beautiful hospitality, the priests for me mark the wild ways up and down -Donegal. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -IRISH TRAITS AND WAYS - - -An English person in Ireland may find himself astray because he will -have no clue to the minds of the people. I once heard two English ladies -returning from an Irish trip say to each other across a -railway-carriage, otherwise full of Irish people, that the Irish all -told lies. This was a rash judgment and a harsh one; I do not know what -the occasion of it was. Sometimes the Irish, through their naturally -gracious manners, will say the thing that will please you best to hear -rather than the absolute truth by rule of thumb. There is the -well-known, well-founded complaint about Irish distances; a peasant will -tell you that you are three miles from a place when you are really -seven. Now, of course you may be misled by the difference between the -Irish and English mile; and thereby hangs a tale. The Irish or -Plantation measure was adopted by Cromwell's planted English, so that -they might get a bigger slice of land than was intended for them. But if -you are told you have three Irish miles to go and find that you have -seven, almost certainly the thought uppermost in your misinformant's -mind was: "The crathur! Sure, he'll think nothin' of it if he believes -it's only three miles; and the spring 'ud be taken out of him altogether -if he thought he'd seven weary miles before him yet. And, sure, by the -time he's travelled the three miles he won't be far off the seven." - -The Irish mind, besides being very nimble, is subtle and complicated. It -may have gone off on an excursion before answering you which you in your -Anglo-Saxon plainness would never dream of; and your truth may not be -the Irish truth at all, and yet both of them be the genuine article. - -A very small Irish boy of my acquaintance, being rudely accused of -having told a lie, responded meekly: "I don't think it were really a -lie; I think it were only an imagination." - -"Are there any priests in the town?" you ask an Irishman; and he -replies, there being some half-dozen: "The streets are black with them." - -"You can't always depend on eggs, not if they comes in fresh from the -nest," said an Irish servant to me, when some of the grocer's "new-laid" -eggs had "popped" in the saucepan. The remark was purely consolatory -and was not at all intended to convey that the hens laid stale eggs. - -The Irish "bull," so-called, very often is the result of the -nimble-wittedness of the speaker. He has thought more than he has -expressed, and the bull implies a hiatus. "I'd better be a coward for -ten minutes than be dead all my life" is a famous example of an Irish -bull; but it only means "all the days of my natural life"; so much was -not expressed. - -My harsh critics of the London and North-Western express would doubtless -have found the soft, flattering ways of the Irish false and -hypocritical. One remembers the famous compliment, "No matter what age -you are, ma'am, you don't look it," and the historical compliment of the -Irish coal-porter to one of the beautiful Gunnings: "Sure, I could light -my pipe by the fire of her eye." - -Sometimes a compliment or a wheedling good wish will take a sudden turn. -"May the blessin' of God go afther you!" says an Irish beggar--"may the -blessin' of God go afther you!" The desired alms not being forthcoming, -the blessing flows naturally into--"and never overtake you." - -The beggars are great wits, of a sardonic kind usually. A rather short -friend of mine walking with his tall sister, the two were importuned -fruitlessly by a beggar-woman. Before they passed out of hearing she -called gently to the lady: "Well, there you go! And goodness help the -poor little crathur that hadn't the spirit to say no to you." This -double insult to the supposed husband and wife was very neat. - -A matter-of-fact young sister of mine, having been begged from by a -ragged woman with a string of ragged children at one end of the village, -was importuned at the other end by a man, similarly accompanied, whom -she took rightly to be the woman's mate. "We're poor orphans," whined -the second string of children; "our poor mother's dead and buried." "I -don't believe it," she said; "I met your mother at the other end of the -village." "Take no notice of her, childer," said the man sorrowfully. -"It wouldn't be right to touch a penny of her money. She's an -unbeliever--that's what she is." - -An old beggar-man, to whom I explained apologetically that I was without -my purse, looked at me benevolently. "Never mind!" he said; "you'd give -it if you had it, wouldn't you? But there's one thing I want to tell -you: your dog's gone home without you." I don't quite know how it was -meant, but it conveyed to me a sense of well-meaning failure and -inefficiency generally. - -The salutations in Ireland used to be delightful. I hope it may be long -before they are out of date. "God save you kindly," was the salutation -on the roadside. "God save all here!" you said, entering a house. And if -any work was in progress, you said: "God bless the work!" If they were -churning in the kitchen as you entered it, with the old up-and-down -dasher or "dash," as I knew it, you took a few turns with the dash lest -you should carry off the butter. Butter and milk are things often -charmed away. When I was a young girl, there was at Lucan, in the county -Dublin, a fairy doctor, who was called in if the cows weren't milking -well, or the butter didn't come to the churn, or if the beasts were -ailing. A more Christian thing was to bring the live-stock to the priest -to be blessed, or to bring the priests to the field to bless them, which -is done every year. Even the Orangeman of the North, if he has a cow -ailing, thinks it not amiss to ask for the priest's blessing. All the -same, the Irish Celts, in their superstitions, have a way of rounding on -their good friends, the priests. Priests' marriages--that is, marriages -arranged by the priests--are proverbially unlucky. And to buy the -priest's cow in a fair is notoriously unlucky for the general dealing -of the day, as well as that particular one. - -[Illustration: A HOME IN DONEGAL.] - -The freedom of the people with their superiors is often a -stumbling-block to the stranger; while to the Irish man or woman the -division between classes in England will seem strange and -unnatural--inhuman almost. "That's an elegant new trousers you have on, -Master John," I heard an apple-woman by the kerb say to a young -gentleman. The intimacy is not at all presumptuous; very far from it. -Indeed, Irish people coming to live in England often blunder into -treating their inferiors with the easy intimacy of the life at home, -only to find that it is neither desired nor expected. - -Irish servants of the old class were retainers and very much devoted to -the families they lived with. The conditions were strange and difficult -to those not accustomed to them. You would find a family of the gentry -of the lowest Low Church on terms of tender affection with its -Papistical servants and with the neighbouring peasants. They would have -told you as abstract facts that Home Rule would mean the massacre of the -Protestants, and that already their lands and properties were -partitioned in the secret councils of whatever League happened to be -uppermost at the moment. It would be an article of their creed that the -priests were accountable for all the troubles of Ireland. They would -have consented generally to the axiom that no Irish Papist told the -truth. Yet they would always exempt their own servants, and perhaps -their own tenants, and would fly at you as being anti-Irish if you -suggested a flaw in the Irish character, or even an excellency in the -English, which is almost as bad, if not quite. There are families of -Irish gentlefolk come down in the world whose servants, having feasted -with them, starve with them. One such servant I knew who managed the -whole finances of the family, and laid out the few coins to the greatest -advantage, allotting the supplies with a carefulness which must have -been bitter to her Irish heart. If the family lived too well at the -beginning of the week, it must go hungry at the end. - -In an Irish house the young ladies and gentlemen are very often found in -the kitchen, not in pursuit of the housewifely virtues, but for social -reasons. The kitchen-fire is the best "to have a heat by." The cook will -rake out the ashes and make the fire bright for Master Rody or Miss -Sheila to warm their feet by; and in the kitchen Irish children of the -gentle class get filled to the lips with the peculiarly awful -ghost-stories of the Celt, with old songs and charms and folklore of -one sort or another; sometimes, too, with old legends and stories which -make young rebels of the children of the garrison and perhaps old rebels -as well. There is no nurse so warm and comfortable as a good Irish -nurse, as the little children of the Irish nobility and gentry--invading -or planted families, very often--found, drawing life from an Irish -breast, and wrapped up in a comfortable Irish embrace from all ghosts -and hobgoblins. - -I remember the young daughter of very Evangelical gentlepeople in -Ireland who used to spend her Sunday afternoons, with the full knowledge -of her parents, seated on the kitchen-table reading Papistical -newspapers to the servants, whom she adored, and who adored her with at -least an equal warmth. Her gold watch was the gift of one old servant; -and on the eve of her marriage to a London curate she found pinned to -her pincushion an envelope containing a five-pound note--"For my darling -Miss Biddy, from Mary Anne." - -It has always seemed to me that the tie is closer and tenderer between -the Irish Catholic servant and the Protestant gentry than when the -employers are also of the old religion. It is certain that in the -burning of Scullabogue Barn, and at the Bridge of Wexford, during the -Rebellion, Catholic servants perished with their Protestant employers. - -The tender concern that may be shown for you by an Irish person of whom -you ask the way will stir you to wonderment. "Is it permissible to walk -on the sea-wall?" a friend of mine asked of an Irish policeman. "Sure it -is; but I wouldn't do it if I was you. It 'ud be terrible cowld," was -the reply. "I wouldn't walk it if I was you," you may be answered when -you ask how far a place is; "you wouldn't be killin' yourself--now, -would you?" - -When ladies first rode the bicycle in Ireland they excited different -emotions, according to the character of the looker-on. "What would the -blessed saints in heaven think of you?" the old women used to call out; -but one old man had only compassion for the female cyclist. "God help -yez," he said; "'tis killin' yourselves yez'll be with them little -wheely things, bad luck to them!" - -You will find the soft, insinuating ways in a shop when you make a -purchase or mean to make one. "It looks lovely on you," a shop-assistant -will say, with an air of being dispassionate. "Can you send this home -to-night?" you ask, having concluded your purchase. "Sure, why not?" If -you are English-born and bred, you will be at a loss to say why not. - -A policeman in Dublin will direct you: "You take that turn over there, -an' you go along till you meet a turn on your left, but you'll take no -notice of that; you'll keep straight on, and there'll be another turn, -but you'll take no notice of that. An' after that, you'll come to a -third turn, an' you'll take notice of that, for that's the street you're -after." - -I recognized a countryman of my own in London when I asked a policeman -the way and demurred from his instructions, remarking that I had been -told to approach by a different way. "Sure you can, if you like," he -said, looking at me with his head on one side, "but I wouldn't if I was -you; it 'ud be a terrible long way round." - -An Irishman will always agree with you if he can--or even if he can't. -It is the Irish politeness. If you were to say to him, "Three years ago -to-day I had as bad a cold as ever I had in my life," he will say, "To -be sure you had; I remember it well. 'Twas a terrible dose of a cowld, -all out." This makes the Irish a very agreeable people to live with if -you have not offended them. - -There are one or two virtues, not of the shining sort, which are hardly -virtues at all, but rather vices to the Irish. Thrift is one of these. -Another is its cousin, punctuality. No Irishman holds punctuality in -honour. Irish time is twenty-five minutes later than English time and -takes a deal longer than that to come up with English time. Any time at -all will do for an Irishman. "Punctuality is the thief of time" is one -of his axioms. Above all things, he despises punctuality about -meal-times, and this, I know, will wring an Englishman's withers. An -Irish meal is served whenever it is ready; and if it is never ready at -all, the Irishman will take a snack when he feels he really wants it. No -Irishman is ill-tempered because his meals are late. He prides himself -on his indifference to food as one of the things that set him apart from -the unspiritual Saxon. You could hardly offend an Irishman more than by -accusing him of having a hearty appetite. His meals are all movable -feasts. Oddly enough, the Anglo-Irishman is quite as unpunctual as the -Celt, if not more so. He assimilates the ways of the Celt, while the -Celt remains untouched by his. The Anglo-Irishman is often as good a -trencherman as his English brother, but he would never think of -disturbing the machinery of Irish life so far as to expect his dinner at -a given time. I have been asked to dine in Dublin and have arrived -punctually, only to find the tradesmen's carts delivering the dinner; -and, having grown accustomed to English ways, I have made a frantic -effort to arrive at the appointed hour for a luncheon-party, only to -find the hostess lying down with toothache, and the drawing-room fire -still unlit. - -To be sure, you may arrive at a house at any hour of the day in Ireland -and fall in for a meal. If you arrive at a time within at all measurable -distance of meal-time, you shall not go forth unfed, although you be -press-ganged to stay. I shall never forget the horror of my Irish -friends when they heard that one was allowed to leave an English house -with the dinner-bell in one's ears. "It must be an _awful_ country," -they said; then, detecting something of guilt, perhaps, in my air, they -ventured: "But that wouldn't happen in an _Irish_ house--not in -_yours_." When I confessed that it had happened in mine they changed the -subject. If they had allowed themselves to speak, they would have said -too much. - -I know an Irishman settled in England--a North of Ireland, that is to -say a Scotch-Irishman, and a man of business--who always has the motor -round for a spin as soon as the dinner-bell rings. He cannot keep his -English servants, and is grieved at their perversity, which would keep -him chained to a hot dining-room on an ideal evening for a motor-run. -His guests stay their hunger with sherry and biscuits while they await -his return. - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Peeps at Many Lands: Ireland, by Katharine Tynan - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT MANY LANDS: IRELAND *** - -***** This file should be named 43623-8.txt or 43623-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/6/2/43623/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Peeps at Many Lands: Ireland - -Author: Katharine Tynan - -Illustrator: Francis S. Walker - -Release Date: September 2, 2013 [EBook #43623] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT MANY LANDS: IRELAND *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - PEEPS AT MANY LANDS AND CITIES - -EACH CONTAINING 12 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR - - AUSTRALIA GREECE NEW ZEALAND - BELGIUM HOLLAND NORWAY - BERLIN HOLY LAND PARIS - BURMA HUNGARY PORTUGAL - CANADA ICELAND ROME - CEYLON INDIA RUSSIA - CHINA IRELAND SCOTLAND - CORSICA ITALY SIAM - DENMARK JAMAICA SOUTH AFRICA - EDINBURGH JAPAN SOUTH SEAS - EGYPT KASHMIR SPAIN - ENGLAND KOREA SWEDEN - FINLAND LONDON SWITZERLAND - FRANCE MOROCCO TURKEY - GERMANY NEW YORK WALES - - PEEPS AT NATURE - - WILD FLOWERS AND THEIR WONDERFUL WAYS - BRITISH LAND MAMMALS - BIRD LIFE OF THE SEASONS - THE HEAVENS - - PEEPS AT HISTORY - - CANADA JAPAN - INDIA SCOTLAND - - PEEPS AT GREAT RAILWAYS - - THE LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY -THE NORTH-EASTERN AND GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAYS - -PUBLISHED BY ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK - -SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. - - AGENTS - - AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - 64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK - - AUSTRALASIA OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS - 205 FLINDERS LANE, MELBOURNE - - CANADA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD. - ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE, 70 BOND STREET, TORONTO - - INDIA MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD. - MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY - 309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA - -[Illustration: THE EAGLE'S NEST, KILLARNEY.] - -[Illustration] - - - - - PEEPS AT MANY LANDS - - IRELAND - - BY - - KATHARINE TYNAN - - AUTHOR OF "THE DEAR IRISH GIRL," "AN ISLE IN THE - WATER," ETC. - - WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS - IN COLOUR - - BY - - FRANCIS S. WALKER, R.H.A. - - LONDON - ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK - 1911 - - _First printed November, 1909 - Reprinted October, 1910, and September, 1911_ - - - - -CONTENTS - - -CHAPTER PAGE - - I. ARRIVAL 1 - - II. DUBLIN 6 - - III. THE IRISH COUNTRY 20 - - IV. THE IRISH PEOPLE 27 - - V. SOUTH OF DUBLIN 38 - - VI. THE NORTH 44 - - VII. CORK AND THEREABOUTS 49 - -VIII. GALWAY 58 - - IX. DONEGAL OF THE STRANGER 65 - - X. IRISH TRAITS AND WAYS 76 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - -THE EAGLE'S NEST, KILLARNEY _Frontispiece_ - - FACING PAGE - -A VILLAGE IN ACHILL viii - -SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN 9 - -DUBLIN BAY FROM VICTORIA HILL 16 - -BLARNEY CASTLE 25 - -OFF TO AMERICA 32 - -A WICKLOW GLEN 41 - -THE RIVER LEE 48 - -RALEIGH'S HOUSE, MYRTLE GROVE 57 - -GLENCOLUMBKILLE HEAD 64 - -A DONEGAL HARVEST 73 - -A HOME IN DONEGAL 80 - -DIGGING POTATOES _on the cover_ - - _Sketch-Map of Ireland on p. vii_ - -[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF IRELAND.] - -[Illustration: A VILLAGE IN ACHILL.] - - - - -IRELAND - - - - -CHAPTER I - -ARRIVAL - - -It may safely be said that any boy or girl who takes a peep at Ireland -will want another peep. Between London and Ireland, so far as atmosphere -and the feeling of things is concerned, there is a world of distance. Of -course, it is the difference between two races, for the Irish are mainly -Celtic, and the Celtic way of thinking and speaking and feeling is as -different as possible from the Saxon or the Teuton, and the Celt has -influenced the Anglo-Irish till they are as far away from the English -nearly as the Celts themselves. If you are at all alert, you will begin -to find the difference as soon as you step off the London and North -Western train at Holyhead and go on board the steamer for Kingstown. The -Irish steward and stewardess will have a very different way from the -formal English way. They will be expansive. They will use ten words to -one of the English official. Their speech will be picturesque; and if -you are gifted with a sense of humour--and if you are not, you had -better try to beg, borrow or steal it before you go to Ireland--there -will be much to delight you. I once heard an Irish steward on a long-sea -boat at London Docks remonstrate with the passengers in this manner: - -"Gentlemen, gentlemen, will yez never get to bed? Yez know as well as I -do that every light on the boat is out at twelve o'clock. It's now a -quarter to wan, and out goes the lights in ten minutes." - -There is what the Englishman calls an Irish bull in this speech; but the -Irish bull usually means that something is left to the imagination. I -will leave you to discover for yourself the hiatus which would have made -the steward's remark a sober English statement. - -These things make an Irish heart bound up as exultantly as the lark -springs to the sky of a day of April--that is to say, of an Irish exile -home-returning--for the dweller in Ireland grows used to such pearls of -speech. - -Said a stewardess to whom I made a request that she would bring to my -cabin a pet-dog who, under the charge of the cook, was making the night -ring with his lamentations: "Do you want to have me murdered?" This -only conveyed that it was against the regulations. But while she looked -at me her eye softened. "I'll do it for _you_," she said, with a subtle -suggestion that she wouldn't do it for anyone else; and then added -insinuatingly, "if the cook was to mind the basket?" "To be sure," said -I, being Irish. "Ask the cook if he will kindly mind the basket and let -me have the dog." And so it was done, and the cook had his perquisite, -while I had the dog. - -At first, unless you have a very large sense of humour--and many English -people have, though the Irish who do not know anything about them deny -it to them _en bloc_--you will be somewhat bewildered. Apropos of the -same little dog, we asked a policeman at the North Wall, one wintry -morning of arrival, if the muzzling order was in force in Dublin. - -"Well, it is and it isn't," he said. "Lasteways, there's a muzzlin' -order on the south side, but there isn't on the north, through Mr. L---- -on the North Union Board, that won't let them pass it. If I was you I'd -do what I liked with the dog this side of the river, but when I crossed -the bridge I'd hide him. You'll be in a cab, won't you?" - -After you've had a few peeps at Ireland, you won't want the jokes -explained to you, perhaps, or the picturesqueness of speech -demonstrated. - -Before you glide up to the North Wall Station you will have discovered -some few things about Ireland besides the picturesqueness of the Irish -tongue. You will have seen the lovely coast-line, all the townships -glittering in a fairy-like atmosphere, with the mountains of Dublin and -Wicklow standing up behind them. You will have passed Howth, that -wonderful rock, which seems to take every shade of blue and purple, and -silver and gold, and pheasant-brown and rose. You will have felt the -Irish air in your face; and the Irish air is soft as a caress. You will -have come up the river, its squalid and picturesque quays. You will have -noticed that the poor people walking along the quay-side are far more -ragged and unkempt generally than the same class in England. The women -have a way of wearing shawls over their heads which does not belong -naturally to the Western world, and sets one to thinking of the curious -belief some people have entertained about the Irish being descended from -the lost tribes. A small girl in a Dublin street will hold her little -shawl across her mouth, revealing no more of the face than the eyes and -nose, with an effect which is distinctly Eastern. The quay-side streets -are squalid enough, and the people ragged beyond your experience, but -there will be no effect of depression and despondency such as assails -you in the East End of London. The people are much noisier. They greet -each other with a shrillness that reminds you of the French. The streets -are cheerful, no matter how poor they may be. I have always said that -there is ten times the noise in an Irish street, apart from mere -traffic, than in an English one. An Irish village is full of noise, -chatter of women, crying of children, barking of dogs, lowing of cattle, -bleating of sheep, crowing of cocks, cackling of hens, quacking of -ducks, grunting of pigs. The people talk at the top of their voices, so -that you might suppose them to be quarrelling. It is merely the dramatic -sense. I have heard an Irish peasant make a bald statement--or, at -least, it would have been bald in an English mouth--as though she -pleaded, argued, remonstrated, scolded, deprecated. - -Accustomed to Irish ways, English villages have always appeared very -dead to me. Unless it be on market morning, one might be in the Village -of the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty. I once visited Dunmow of the -Flitch of a golden May-day. It was neither Flitch Day nor Market Day, -and I aver that I walked through the town and saw no living creature, -except a cat fast asleep, right in the midst of the sun-baked roadway. -Such a thing could not have happened in Ireland. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -DUBLIN - - -Dublin is a city of magnificences and squalors. It has the widest street -in Europe, they say, in Sackville Street, which, after the manner of the -policeman and the muzzling order, half the population calls O'Connell -Street. The public buildings are very magnificent. These are due, for -the greater part, to the man who found Dublin brick and left it -marble--that great city-builder, John Claudius Beresford, of the latter -half of the eighteenth century, whose name is at once famous and -infamous to the Irish ear, because when he had made a new Dublin he -flogged rebels in Beresford's Riding-School in Marlborough Street with a -thoroughness which left nothing to be desired except a little mercy. -Beresford, who was one of the Waterford Beresfords, was First -Commissioner of Revenue, as well as an Alderman of the City of Dublin. -Before he went city-building, Dublin was a small place enough. For -centuries it consisted chiefly of Dublin Castle, the two -cathedrals--Patrick's and Christ's Church; Dublin is alone in Northern -Europe in possessing two cathedrals--and the narrow streets that -clustered about them. Somewhere about the middle of the eighteenth -century St. Stephen's Green was built--the finest square in Europe, we -say; I do not know if the claim be well founded. A little later -Sackville Street began to take shape, communicating with the other bank -of the river by ferry-boats. Essex Bridge was at that time the most -easterly of the bridges, and the banks of the river were merely -mud-flats, especially so where James Gandon's masterpiece, the -Custom-House, was presently to rear its stately facade. The latter part -of the eighteenth century was the great age of Dublin. Ireland still had -its Lords and Commons, who had declared their legislative independence -of England in 1782. Society was as brilliant as London, and far gayer. -It was certainly a time in which to go city-building, for these -splendours needed housing. Before Beresford began his plans, calling in -the genius of James Gandon, with many lesser lights, to assist him, -Sackville Street and Dublin generally were as insanitary as any town of -the Middle Ages. Open sewers ran down the middle of the streets. There -was no pretence at paving. The streets were ill-lit by smelly oil-lamps. -The Dublin watchmen found plenty to do, as did their brethren in London, -in protecting peaceful citizens from the pranks of the Dublin brethren -of the London Mohocks in the tortuous and ill-lit streets. Dublin, the -city of the English pale, remained and remains an English city--with a -difference. The Anglo-Irish did the things their London brethren were -doing--with a difference. If there were unholy revels at Medmenham Abbey -on the Thames, they were imitated or excelled by their Irish prototypes, -whose clubhouse you will still see standing up before you a ruin on top -of the Dublin mountains. In many ways the society of Dublin models -itself on London to this day. - -The Lords and Commons of Ireland were already living about the Rotunda -in Sackville Street, Rutland Square, Gardiner's Row, Great Denmark -Street, Marlborough Street, and North Great George's Street, when John -Claudius Beresford began his work. He bridged the river with -Carlisle--now O'Connell--Bridge. He constructed Westmoreland Street -right down to the Houses of Parliament. - -[Illustration: SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN.] - -He built the Custom-House, now a rabbit-warren of Government offices, on -a scale proportioned to the needs of the greatest trading city in -Europe, oblivious of the fact that Irish trade was going or gone; or, -perhaps--who knows?--building for the future. All that part of the city -lying between the new bridge and the Custom-House was laid out in -streets. Meanwhile the nobility and gentry who had town-houses were -seized with the passion for beautifying them. The old Dublin houses were -of an extraordinary stateliness and beauty. Money was poured out like -water on their beautification. The floral decoration in stucco-work on -walls and ceilings still makes a dirty glory in some of the old houses. -Famous artists, like Cipriani and Angelica Kauffmann, painted the -wall-panels and ceilings with pseudo-classical goddesses and nymphs. A -certain Italian named Bossi executed that inlaying in coloured marbles -which made so many of the old mantelpieces things of beauty. The old -Dublin houses still retain their stately proportions, although some of -them have been dismantled and others come down to be tenement-houses. -But there is yet plenty to remind us that Dublin had once its Augustan -Age. - -If you have the tastes of the antiquary, the old Dublin houses and -buildings will afford you matter of great interest. - -In the first place, there is Dublin Castle, which was built by King -John. Of the four original towers, only one now remains. The castle has -been the town residence of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland since Sidney -established himself there in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. For the rest, -it is a congerie of Government offices of one sort or another. - -The castle was built over the Poddle River, which now creeps in -darkness, degraded to a common sewer, under the dark and dismal houses, -and empties itself in an unclean cascade through a grating in the Quay -walls, whence it flows away with the Liffey to the sea. You can visit -the Chapel Royal, if you will, and the viceregal apartments are -sometimes open to inspection if the Viceroy is not in residence. I lived -many years in Dublin without desiring to inspect what may be seen of -Dublin Castle, though I have often stood in the castle yard under the -Bermingham Tower, and, looking up at that great keep, have remembered -how Hugh O'Donnell and his companions escaped by way of the Poddle one -Christmas Eve in the spacious days of great Elizabeth, and how the young -chieftain of Tyrconnel narrowly escaped the frozen death which befell -his companions as they climbed those Dublin mountains over yonder to -find refuge with the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes of the Wicklow Hills. - -Those were the Irish clans that used to make the English burghers of -Dublin shake in their shoes. While they sold their silks or woollens, or -sat at meals or exchange, or said their prayers in their churches, they -never could be sure that the wild Irish cry would not come ringing at -their gates. The O'Byrnes and O'Tooles would swoop down at intervals, -and raid the cattle from the fat pastures of the pale, sweeping back -again with their spoil to their impregnable fastnesses. Some years ago a -Father O'Toole published a book on the Clan of O'Toole, which contained -the genealogical tree of the O'Tooles, tracing their descent without a -break from Noah. This is a matter of interest to me, as I myself am an -O'Toole. - -The history of nations is, after all, the history of men--of men and of -movements--and it is individual and outstanding men who make for us the -milestones of history. Ireland has produced, in proportion to her -population, a more than usual number of outstanding men; and, thinking -of Dublin houses and monuments of one kind or another, we find it is of -men we are thinking, after all. - -Thinking of Christ Church, that beautiful Gothic cathedral, I think of -St. Patrick, because his staff was preserved there, and was an object of -great reverence till it was burnt by a too-zealous reforming Bishop in -the days of Elizabeth. St. Patrick was a very delightful saint. One -loves the legends that gather about him. I like especially how he -wrestled with the angel on Croagh-Patrick, and would not come down from -the mountain till he had been granted his several prayers. There were -three in particular. The first one was that Ireland should never depart -from the Christian faith. "Very well, then," said the angel, "God grants -you that." "Next," said Patrick, "I ask that on the Judgment Day I may -sit on God's right hand and judge the Irish people." "That you can't -have," said the angel. "Be quiet now, and go down from the mountain." -"What!" said Patrick, "is it for this that I have fasted so many days on -the mountain, wrested with evil ones, been exposed to the rain and -tempest, prayed hard, fought temptations--only for this?" "Very well, -you shall have this," replied the angel. "And now that you have your -wish satisfied, go down from the mountain." "Not till my third prayer be -granted." "What! a third prayer?" cried the angel. "You ask too much, O -Patrick, and you shall not have it. You are too covetous." "Was it for -this?" began Patrick again, with a recital of all he had done and -suffered. "Very well, then," said the angel, tired out; "have your third -prayer, but ask no more, for it will not be given to you." "I ask that -all who recite my prayer" (_i.e._, the prayer known as St. Patrick's -Breastplate) "shall not be lost at the Last Day." "Very well, then," -said the angel, "you shall have that; but now go down." "I am content -now," said Patrick; "I will go down." - -He was a fighting saint, despite his many gentlenesses. At Downpatrick, -where he built his cathedral, he took a little fawn which his men would -have killed, and carried it in his breast. I like the description of him -by his friend St. Evan of Monasterevan, which tells us how he was sweet -to his friends, but terrible to his enemies. - -I think of St. Patrick at Christ Church rather than of St. Lawrence -O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, who, with Strongbow, that fierce Norman -who seized Ireland for Henry II. of England, built Christ Church. St. -Lawrence O'Toole's heart lies here in a reliquary. Here also Lambert -Simnel was crowned; but who thinks of that ignoble impostor now? - -Christ Church presents an effect of lightness and brightness very -different from St. Patrick's, in which it seems to me it is always -afternoon, and winter afternoon. Patrick is in a particularly -picturesque slum of the city, in the Earl of Meath's liberty, hard by -the Coombe, which was once a pleasant dell, no doubt, but is now the -raggedest of slums. To the Earl of Meath's liberty came the French -silk-weavers expelled from France after the revocation of the Edict of -Nantes, and established the industry of poplin-weaving there. - -The man with whom St. Patrick's Cathedral is associated is Jonathan -Swift, and for his sake it is perpetually dark. It is haunted by the -tragedy of his life and death. Here Esther Johnson is buried; and over -yonder, in the Deanery House, Swift, a sick man, lay in bed and watched -the torches in the great church when they were making ready her grave. -The strange bitterness of the terrible inscription which commemorates -that most unhappy great man seems to colour the atmosphere of St. -Patrick's. "Where fierce indignation can no more lacerate his heart," he -rests by the side of the woman who was faithful to him with a long -patience, whose death left him to loneliness and madness. - -The whole place is haunted by him, as is the deanery close by and the -old library of Dr. Marsh, which is said to have a ghost that flings the -books about at night. - -What ghosts meet one in the Dublin streets! There is Wesley. He was -visiting the Countess of Moira at Moira House, which now, docked of its -upper story, is the Mendicity, or, as the Irish put it, the "Mendacity" -Institution. It was a splendid mansion when Wesley was there. One room -with a bay-window was lined with mother-o'-pearl. "Alas," said Wesley -prophetically, "that all this must vanish like a dream!" The Moiras were -not only religious: they were cultivated, refined, patriotic in the -truest sense--altogether noble and generous. They received poor Pamela, -Lady Edward Fitzgerald, with kindly open arms when that romantic hero, -Lord Edward, lay dying of his wounds. - -You shall see, if you will, the old House of Lords, preserved in its old -state by the Governors of the Bank of Ireland, who have made it their -board-room. The House of Commons has become the Bank's counting-house, -and there is no trace of its former state. What ghosts you might meet -there at night!--Grattan, Flood, Curran, Hussey Burgh, Plunket, to say -nothing of lesser worthies. Over against the Parliament Houses was -Daly's Club-House, where forgathered the wits, the bucks, the -duellists. There was Buck Whaley, who walked to Jerusalem for a wager, -and for the same reason once sprang out of the window of his house on -Stephen's Green into a carriage full of ladies. That house is now -University College, and has its associations with Newman; and you might -see there some of the most beautiful specimens of the eighteenth-century -decoration still remaining--the Bossi mantelpieces, the stucco-work, the -beautiful old doors of wine-red mahogany, and all the rest of it. Buck -Whaley had a friend, Buck Jones, who is commemorated in Jones's Road. -When I was a little girl--and how long ago that is I shall not tell -you--Buck Jones's ghost still walked the road which is named after him. -You see, Dublin still ranged itself alongside London; and we had our -Buck Whaley and our Buck Jones if London and Bath had their Beau Brummel -and their Beau Nash. - -[Illustration: DUBLIN BAY FROM VICTORIA HILL.] - -Cheek by jowl with the Houses of Parliament is the ancient college of -Queen Elizabeth--the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. That, -too, has memories and ghosts. The University has had illustrious sons. -Swift, Goldsmith, Bishop Berkeley, Edmund Burke, were among them. Swift -was "stopped of his degree for dulness," and had no love for his -_alma mater_. She had other sons, such as Robert Emmet and Theobald -Wolfe Tone and Thomas Davis, among her brightest jewels, though she -would not have it so. She spreads a quiet place of grey quadrangles and -green park and gardens midmost of the city, and she helps to give -dignity to Dublin, already by her Viceregal Court marked as no -provincial town. - -If I were to talk to you of the ancient history of Dublin, this book -would become, not "A Peep at Ireland," but "A Peep at Dublin." You will -see for yourself the ancient houses of the nobility, the Lords and -Commons of Ireland. Some of them have come to strange uses. Aldborough -House is a barracks; Powerscourt House was in my day a wholesale -draper's; Marino, the splendid residence of the Earls of Charlemont at -Clontarf, is in the hands of the Christian Brothers. Many of these old -houses are turned into Government offices. - -"Alas, that all this must vanish like a dream!" said John Wesley. And -how quickly he was justified! In the latter part of the eighteenth -century Dublin prided itself on being the gayest capital in Europe. -Perhaps Dublin had always too many pretensions. However, it was -sufficiently gay and extraordinarily picturesque. The Rutland -viceroyalty marked, perhaps, its highest water-mark of gaiety. It was -said that the Rutlands were sent over "to drink the Irish into -good-humour"--that is, to distract them from serious matters, such as -legislative independence and the like. However that may be, they did set -the capital to dancing. After all, it was always the Anglo-Irish who -counted in the rebellious movements. One has to go as far back as Owen -Roe O'Neill to find a Celtic leader. For the time, at all events, Dublin -gave itself up to the fascinations of the gallant and gay young Duke and -his wonderful Duchess. The Irish allowed that the Duchess was one of the -handsomest women in Ireland. Elsewhere she was reputed among the -loveliest in Europe. We hear of her dancing at a ball attired in light -pink silk, with diamond stomacher and sleeve-knots, and wearing a large -brown hat profusely adorned with jewels. Every night there were balls at -the castle or the Rotunda. The Duchess was dancing Dublin into -good-humour. There were all manner of other social festivities. Every -Sunday the Duchess drove on the North Circular Road, with six -cream-coloured ponies to her phaeton, all the rank and fashion of Dublin -following in coaches-and-six, coaches-and-four, and less pretentious -equipages. There was card-playing; there was hard drinking; there were -all manner of distractions, disedifying and edifying. For then, as now, -the representatives of the King and Queen took the charities under their -wing; and dancing at the Rotunda supported the Rotunda Hospital, to say -nothing of the tax on the waiting sedan-chairs, which put a few hundred -pounds more into the hospital's coffers. - -"Alas, that all this must vanish like a dream!" To be sure, many of the -most illustrious of the Anglo-Irish, more Irish than the Irish, refused -to be either danced or drunk into good-humour. The brilliant viceroyalty -lasted not quite four years, and the gay and handsome Duke left Ireland -in the saddest way, carried high on men's shoulders. - -Afterwards there were other things than dancing. There was the Rebellion -of 1798. There was the Legislative Union with Great Britain, which meant -for Ireland the absence of her Lords and gentry, and the spending in -London of revenues derived from Ireland. - -In the early years of the nineteenth century grass grew in the streets -of Dublin. Famine and pestilence followed each other in monotonous -succession. Emmet's Rebellion broke out in 1804. If you were interested -in such things, you would penetrate the slummy parts of Dublin as far -as Thomas Street to see where, in front of St. Catharine's Church, Emmet -died, and the house where Lord Edward Fitzgerald was arrested. - -Dublin is full of memories, of associations, of ghosts: no city in -Europe is richer in such. There is hardly a stone of her streets which -is not storied. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE IRISH COUNTRY - - -Dublin possesses great natural advantages. The sea, the mountains, the -green country, are at her gates. You take one of her many trams, and at -the terminus you step into solitudes, into "dear secret greenness" of -country; on to expanses of sea-sand, with the waves breaking in little -crisped curls of foam at your feet. She is ringed about with mountains. -She has a most beautiful coast-line. Turn which way you will on leaving -her, you are safe to turn to beauty. Round about her are clustered -various beauties. Beyond the Dublin mountains, the Wicklow Mountains, -into which they gently pass, invite you. The mountains have the most -beautiful colouring. It is an effect of the mists and clouds. I have -seen a mountain red as a rose, and I have seen one black as a black -pansy and as velvety. Sometimes they are veiled in silver, with the soft -feet of the flying rain upon them; and sometimes, because the sun is -shining somewhere, that same rain will be a garment of silver or of the -rainbow. - -She is the greenest country ever was seen. England may think she wears -the green; but as compared with Ireland her green is rust-coloured and -dust-coloured. I have gone over from London in May and have found a -green in Ireland that absolutely made me wink. - - "Sweet rose whose hue, angry and brave, - Bids the rash gazer wipe the eye," - -says Herbert; but the green, which is the eye's comforter of all the -colours, is, in an Irish May, of so intense a greenness as to have -something of the same effect as Herbert's rose. I think of the fat -pasture-lands at the gates of Dublin, as well I know them. In May they -are drifts of greenness, with the cattle sunken to their knees, while -the meadows white with daisies, gold with buttercups, presently to be -brown and green with seeding-grasses, have an exceeding cleanness and -brightness of aspect. Grass-green, milk-white, pure gold--these are -fields of delight. There used to be luxuriant hedges, too, ten or -twelve feet high. What hedges they were in May! with the hawthorn in -full bloom--no one calls it may in Ireland--and, later, the -woodbine--honeysuckle in Ireland is the white and purple clover--and -with the woodbine the sheets of wild roses flung lavishly over every -hedge. Since my young days an improving county surveyor has cut down the -hedges, though not so ruthlessly as here in Hertfordshire, where they -are noted hedgers and ditchers, and so strip the poor things to the -earth almost, just as they are coming into leaf, leaving the roads -pitiless indeed for the summer days. - -I think of the lavish Irish hedges and of the strip of grass white with -daisies which ran either side of the footpath. There was always a clear -stream singing along the ditch. It had come down from the mountains, and -was amber-brown in colour, and clear as glass; it ran over pebbles that -were pure gold and silver and precious stones, now and again getting -dammed around a boulder, making a leap to escape, and coming around the -boulder with a swirl and a few specks of foam floating upon it. Ireland -of the Streams is one of the old names for Ireland, and it is justified; -for not only are there lordly rivers like the Shannon and the -Blackwater, to mention but two of them, but there are innumerable -little streams everywhere, undefiled--at least, as I know them--by -factories. You can always kneel down of a summer's day by one, fill your -two hands full and drink your fill; and that mountain water is better -than any wine. You may track it, if you will, up to the mountains, where -you will find it welling out, perhaps, through the fronds of a -hartstongue fern, the first tiny gush of it; and you will find it -widening out and almost hidden by a million flowers and plants that like -to stand with their feet in water. Or you will see it, cool and deep, -with golden shadows sleeping in it, slipping round little boulders and -clattering over stones, in a tremendous hurry to escape from these sweet -places to the noisome city, where it will lose itself in the sewer water -before it finds its way to the sea. - -There is no such order in an Irish as in an English landscape: none of -the rich, ordered garden air which in England so delights Americans and -colonials. The Irish landscape is always somewhat forlorn, wild and -soft, with an impalpable melancholy upon it--this even in the fat -pasture-lands of Dublin County. How much more so when the bogs spread -their beautiful brown desolation over miles of country, or in the wild -places where man asks for bread and Nature gives him a stone! At its -most prosperous the country is always a little wild, a little mournful, -a barefooted colleen with cloudy hair and shy eyes sometimes tearful, -and no conventional beauty--only something that takes the heart by storm -and holds it fast. - -Irish skies weep a deal. That accounts, of course, for the great -vegetation, the intense greenness. If I did not know the Irish green I -should be unable to realize the mantle of grass-green silk which so -often the old ballad-makers gave their knights and ladies. Knowing the -Irish grass, I see an intenser green than if I did not know it. Where -there are not rocks and stones and mountains, where there is cultivation -in Ireland, there is leafage and grass of great luxuriousness. Of a wet -summer in Ireland you could scarcely walk through the grass; it might -meet above a child's head. Contrariwise, the flora of Ireland, as I know -it, is much less various and luxuriant than that of England. In a -childhood and youth spent in the Irish country--it was round about -Dublin--I recall only the simpler and commoner wild-flowers. On a chalk -cliff at Dover, when May spread a carpet of flowers, I have seen a -greater variety of wild-flowers than I knew in a lifetime in -Ireland--most of them unknown to me by name. - -[Illustration: BLARNEY CASTLE.] - -Nor do I think the birds are so many as in England, perhaps because so -much of Ireland is stripped of its woods; perhaps because Ireland has -been slower to protect the birds than England; perhaps, also, because of -the scantier population, which leaves the birds to suffer hunger in the -winter. There are no nightingales in Ireland, but I do not think we have -missed them, having the thrush and the blackbird, which seem to me to -sing with a richer sweetness in Ireland than in England; but that may be -because the Irish-born person is prone to exaggerate the sweetness he -has lost. But the most characteristic note of the Irish summer is the -corn-crake's. Somehow the Irish corn-crake has a bigger note and is much -more in evidence than his English brother. All the nights of the early -summer in Ireland he saws away with his rasping note, till the hay is -cut, when he disappears. I suppose one hears him as much in the -day-time, but one does not notice him. He is the harsh Irish -nightingale. Poor fellow! he is often immolated before the -mowing-machine; and you shall see him flying with his long-legged wife -and children--or rather scurrying--to the nearest hedgerow, where there -is always a plentiful supply of grass to cover him till he can make up -his mind to go elsewhere. It is a saying in Ireland that you never see -a corn-crake after the meadows are cut. A learned doctor has assured me -that they migrate to Egypt for the good of their voices. - -For the rest, in the Irish country there are villages of an incredible -poverty. The Irish village mars a landscape, whereas so often an English -one enhances its beauty. There are farmhouses and isolated cottages. The -farmhouses are seldom even pretty. Irish house architecture is terribly -ugly, as a rule, except for the few eighteenth-century houses which -derive from the English. The Irish farmhouse is generally a two-story -building, slated and whitewashed. It is too narrow for its height, -although the height may be no great thing. A mean hall-door in the -middle, with a mean window to either side, three mean windows -above--that is the Irish farmer's idea of house-building. I remember an -Irishman of genius objecting to Morland that his cottages were -impossible; there was never the like out of Arcadia. As a matter of -fact, the cottages were such as are the commonplaces of English -villages. But no good Irishman will concede to England a beauty, natural -or otherwise, which Ireland does not possess. The country shows many -ruins--ruined houses, the houses of the Irish gentry; ruined mills; -ruined churches and castles; and behind grey stone walls, unthought of, -uncared for, old disused graveyards filled with prairie grass to the -height of the crumbling walls. - -When the Irish go away they are always lonely for the mountains. No -other mountains are so soft-bosomed and so mild. They have wisps of -cloud lying along the side of them and the blue peak showing above. I -have seen a rainbow, one end of the arch planted in the sea, the other -somewhere behind the mountains, "over the hills and far away." Seeing -that incomparable sight, I understood why the Irish peasant imagines -fairy treasures hidden at the foot of the rainbow. I, too, have been in -Arcadia. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE IRISH PEOPLE - - -I must warn you, before proceeding to write about the Irish people, that -I have tried to explain them, according to my capacity, a thousand times -to my English friends and neighbours, and have been pulled up short as -many times by the reflection that all I have been saying was -contradicted by some other aspect of my country-people. For we are an -eternally contradictory people, and none of us can prognosticate -exactly what we shall feel, what do, under given circumstances; whereas -the Englishman is simple. He has no mysteries. Once you know him, you -can pretty well tell what he will say, what feel, and do under given -circumstances. You have a formula for him: you have no formula for the -Irish. The Englishman is simple, the Irish complex. The Anglo-Irish, who -stand to most English people for the Irish, have had grafted on to them -the complexity of the Irish without their pliability. It makes, perhaps, -the most puzzling of all mixtures, and it may be the chief difficulty in -a proper estimate of the Irish character. - -They will tell you in Ireland that you have to go some forty or fifty -miles from Dublin before you get into Irish Ireland. There are a good -many Irish in Anglo-Ireland, usually in the humbler walks of life, -whence you shall find in Dublin servants, car-drivers, policemen, -newspaper-boys, and so on, the raciness, the vivacity, the charm, which -in Irish Ireland is a perpetual delight. Dublin drawing-rooms are not -vivacious, nor are the manners gracious, although the Four Courts still -produce a galaxy of wit, and Dublin citizens buttonhole each other with -good stories all along the streets, roaring with laughter in a way that -would be regarded as Bedlam in Fleet Street. - -Get into Irish Ireland and the manners have a graciousness which is like -a blessing. I asked the way in Ballyshannon town once. The woman who -directed me came out into the street and a little way with me, and when -she left me called to me sweetly, "Come back soon to Donegal!" which -left a sense of blessing with me all that day. There was a certain -curly-haired "Wullie," who drove the long car from Donegal to Killybegs. -I can see "Wullie" yet helping the women on and off the car with their -myriad packages, can see the delightful grief with which he parted from -us, his shining face of welcome when he met us again a fortnight later. -To set against "Wullie" were the car-drivers, who certainly are -unpleasant if the "whip-money" does not come up to their expectations. -We say of such that they are "spoilt by the tourists," yet I remember -some who were not spoilt by the tourists, although they were perpetually -in touch with them--boatmen and pony-boys at Killarney; and a certain -delightful guide, whose winning gaiety was not at all merely -professional. - -Thinking over my country-people, I say, "They are so-and-so," and then I -have a misgiving, and I say, "But, after all, they are not so-and-so." - -They are the most generous people in the world. They enjoy to the -fullest the delight of giving; and what a good delight that is! I pity -the ungiving people. You will receive more gifts in Ireland in a -twelvemonth than in a lifetime out of it. The first instinct of Irish -liking or loving is to give you something. The giving instinct runs -through all classes. If you sit down in a cabin and see an old piece of -lustre-ware or something else of the sort, do not admire it unless you -mean to accept it; for it will be offered to you, not in the Spanish way -which does not expect acceptance, but in the Irish way which does. I -have many little bits of china given so, usually the one thing of any -consideration or value the donor possessed. I once sought to buy an old -china dish, much flawed and cracked by hot ovens, in a Dublin hotel, as -much to save it from following its fellows to destruction as for any -other reason. The owner would not sell the dish, but he offered it for -my acceptance in such a way that I could not refuse. When I go back to -my old home, the cottagers bring a few new-laid eggs or a griddle-cake -for my acceptance. I have a friend in an Irish village whose income from -an official source is L10 a year. She has a cottage, a few hens, and -enough grass for a cow when she can get one. Her gifts come at -Christmas, at Easter, on St. Patrick's Day, and on some special, private -feasts of my own--eggs, sweets, flowers, a bit of lace, or a fine -embroidered handkerchief, and, in times of illness, a pair of chickens. -That is royal giving out of so little; and I assure you that it blesses -the giver as well as the recipient. - -On the other hand, the farmers grow thriftier and thriftier. Sir Horace -Plunkett and men like him, truly patriotic Irishmen, are showing them -the way. Successive Land Acts lift them more and more into a position of -security from one of precariousness. They have more money now to put in -the savings-banks. Their prosperity does not mean a higher standard of -living, although that is badly needed. It means more money in the -banks--that is all. - -The Irish are very like the French. If the day should come when they -should learn, like the French, to be thrifty and usurious, I hope I -shall not be there to see it. Better--a thousand times better--that they -should remain royal wastrels to the end. - -As yet we need not fear it. Still, if you ask a drink of water at a -mountain cabin in the poorest parts of Ireland, you are given milk; and -_do not offer to pay for it_, lest you sink to the lowest place in the -estimation of these splendid givers. - -The hospitality is truly splendid. There is a saying in Ireland that -they always put an extra bit in the pot for "the man coming over the -hill." It is an unheard-of thing that you should call at an Irish house -and not be asked if "you've a mouth on you." If your visit be within -anything like measurable distance of meal-time you will be obliged to -stay for the meal. - -In England, when people are poor, or comparatively so, or feel the need -of retrenchment, they "do not entertain." It is almost the first form of -retrenchment which suggests itself to the Englishman; whereas to curtail -his hospitalities would be the last form of retrenchment to an Irishman, -and you will be entertained generously and lavishly by people you know -to be poor. The Englishman's different way of looking at the matter is -no doubt partly due to the fact that he is a much more domestic person -than the Irishman, and depends mainly on his family life for his -happiness and pleasure. Now, the French do not give hospitality at all -outside the large family circle, so that in that regard at least the -Irish will have a long way to travel before they touch with the French. - -[Illustration: OFF TO AMERICA.] - -I have said that the Irish are not domestic. They are gregarious, but -not domestic. The Irishman depends a deal on the neighbours; he has no -such way of enclosing himself within a little fortified place of home -against all the ills of the world as has the Englishman. Irish mothers, -like Irish nurses, are often tenderly, exquisitely soft and warm; but -the young ones will fly out of the nest for all that. Perhaps the art of -making the home pleasant is not an Irish art. Perhaps it is the -gregariousness, general and not particular--at least, general in the -sense of embracing the parish and not the family. To the young Irish and -a good many of their elders the home is dull. They go off to America, -leaving the old people to loneliness, because there is no amusement. -They do not make their own interests, as the slower, less vivacious -nations do. The rainy Irish climate seems made for a people who would -find their pleasures indoors. But the Irish will be out and about, -telling good stories and hearing them. They are an artistic people, with -great traditions; yet books or music or conversation will not keep them -at home. If they cannot have the neighbours in, they will go out to the -neighbours. - -They are very religious, and accept the invisible world with a -thoroughness and simplicity of belief which they would say themselves is -their most precious inheritance. The Celt is no materialist. He does not -love success or riches; most of those whom he holds in esteem have been -neither successful nor rich. Money is not the passport to his -affections. He ought never to go away, and, alas! he goes away in -thousands! Contact with the selfish, money-getting materialism has power -to destroy the spiritual qualities of the Celt, once he is outside -Ireland. When he comes back--a prosperous Irish-American--he is no -longer the Celt we loved. And he does come back: that is one of his -contradictions. The home he has left behind because of its dulness, the -arid patch of mountain-land, the graves of his people, call him back -again at the moment when one would have said every bond with them was -loosened. - -He is full of sentiment, yet he makes mercenary marriages. The Irish -match-making customs are well known. In the South and West of Ireland -the prospective bride is bargained over with no more sentiment than if -she were a heifer. She may be "turned down" for an iron pot or a -feather-bed which her mother will not give up to supplement the dowry. -Satin cheeks and speedwell eyes and a head of silk like the raven's -plume will not count against a bullock extra with a yellow spinster of -greater fortune, or is not supposed to count; for sometimes Cupid steps -in, although the match-making customs are usually accepted as -unquestioningly as a similar institution is by the French. And even in -such unpromising soil flowers of love and tenderness will spring up. -Under my hand I have a letter from an Irish peasant which I think -affords a beautiful refutation of the idea that sentiment and -match-making cannot go together. Here is a passage from it: - -"For the last few weeks I was anxiously engaged at match-making, as -matters were going from bad to worse; having no housekeeper, household -jobs and cares prevented me from attending to outside work. Well, at -last my match is made. The marriage is to take place next Thursday. The -'young girl' is twenty-two years, and I thank God that I am perfectly -satisfied with my life-companion-to-be. There were many other matches -introduced to me--far more satisfactory from the financial point of -view, some having L20, some L30, and one L40 more fortune than my -intended wife has, with whom I am getting but L90, while I must 'by -will' give L120 to my brother, leaving a deficit of L30; but, somehow, I -could not satisfy my mind with the other 'good girls' if they had over -L200--nay, at all. And the poet's words were true when he said something -like 'pity is akin to love'; pity I felt first for my intended wife, -with her simple, yet wise, unaffected ways, not used to world's ways and -wiles, 'an unspoiled child of Nature,' never flirted, never went to -dances, with the bloom of her maidenhood fresh and pure, and fair and -bright. When but a last L5 was between myself and her people _re_ -fortune, her very words to me were: 'Wisha, God help me! if I'm worth -anything, I ought to be worth that L5.' That expression of hers stung me -to the quick, so openly, frankly, and innocently uttered, and 'I'm -getting other accounts, but would not marry anyone but you.' Well, the -end was in that one night, sitting beside her in her father's house, the -feeling of pity changed to a warmer feeling, thank God; for if it -didn't, I would rather live and die single than marry against my will. -''Tisn't riches makes happiness.' I've read somewhere that when want -comes in at the door, love flies out of the window; but I don't believe -it--I don't believe it. And my brother is kind; he will be giving me -time to pay the balance, L30, by degrees." - -The Irish are notoriously brave, yet they have a fear of public opinion -unknown to an Englishman. Underneath their charmingly gay and open -manner there is a self-consciousness, a self-mistrust. For all their -keen sense of humour, they cannot bear laughter directed at themselves. -They dread to be made absurd more than anything else in this world. -They are responsive and sympathetic, yet too witty not to be somewhat -malicious; and they are warm and generous, yet not always so reliably -kind as a duller, slower people. They are irritable, so they are less -tolerant of children and animals, although they make excellent nurses, -as I have said. They have no tolerance at all for slowness and -stupidity, very little for ugliness or want of charm. They adore beauty, -though it doesn't count for much in their most intimate relations; and -it is not, therefore, the paradise of plain women. - -I have not touched on a hundredth part of their contradictoriness, which -makes the Irish so eternally unexpected and interesting. They can be, as -they say themselves, "contrairy" when they choose--and they often -choose. Yet, when all is said and done, they are the pleasantest people -in the world. Nor is their pleasantness insincere. They are pleasant -because they feel pleasant; and an Irish man or woman will pay you an -amazing, fresh, audacious compliment which an Englishman might feel, but -would rather die than say. - -Did I say that the Celt was gay and melancholy? He is exquisitely gay -and most profoundly melancholy. He is in touch with the other world, and -yet desperately afraid of it, or of the passage to it, being a creature -of fine nerves and apprehension; whence he will joke about death to -cover up his real repugnance, and yet hold the key to heaven as securely -as though it were the other side of the wall, with a lonesome passage to -be traversed. It is the lonesomeness of death which makes it terrible to -the gregarious Irishman, although he knows that the other side of the -wall the kinsmen and friends and neighbours await him, friendly and -loving as of old. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -SOUTH OF DUBLIN - - -If you go down from Dublin by the wonderful coast-line or through the -beautiful country inland which runs by the base of the mountains, you -will come upon beautiful scenery, and find a population not at all -characteristically Irish. The beauty of Wicklow, its wonderful woods, -its deep glens, its placid waters, its glorious mountains, is only less -than the beauty of Killarney, which is an earthly paradise. But in -Wicklow, in Wexford, in Waterford, the people's blood is mixed. -Sometimes it is Celt upon Celt, the Welsh Celt upon the Irish. There are -charming people in Wicklow and Wexford and Waterford, but to those -counties belongs also what I call the cynical Irishman--the Irishman -without charm of manner, the "independent" Irishman, who will not take -off his hat to rank or age or sex; yet he is Irish enough in the core of -him. And Wicklow and Wexford, with Kildare and part of Meath, were the -scenes of the Rebellion in 1798. Perhaps the memory of those days helps -to make the Irishman of the south-east corner of Ireland what he is, and -that is often something very unlike the gracious Irishman of the South -and West. He has his resentments. I have heard an Irishman say: "A -Wexford man will never look at a Tipperary man, because Tipperary didn't -rise in the Rebellion." The Rebellion, which was hatched in the North by -Ulster Presbyterians, broke out, after all, in Wexford, and on a -religious, and a Catholic, cause of quarrel. There could have been -nothing farther from the thoughts of the leaders of the united Irishmen -than to make a religious war, but that was what the Rebellion of 1798 -turned out to be--a religious war; a war between Catholic and -Protestant, precipitated not by English intriguers, say those who know -well, but by outrageous insults to the Catholic altars, led in many -cases by priests on the rebel side, foredoomed to failure in spite of -the desperate courage of the peasantry who for a time swept all before -them. One always thinks of Wexford and the Rebellion simultaneously. It -was a time of cynical contrasts. Think of the poor peasants, maddened by -outrages to their altars, led by their priests, carrying on the -Rebellion planned by Protestants of the North--by leaders deeply imbued -with the French revolutionary spirit, which was certainly not Christian! -Think of the Western peasants, when Humbert and his men landed at -Killala, hailing those good comrades of the Revolution as -fellow-Catholics, coming to meet them decked out in religious emblems! -One of the strangest and most cynical of these contrasts was the fact -that while the peasant army fought desperately at New Ross, where they -all but carried the day, on the other side of the Barrow River men were -ploughing peacefully in their fields, because it was Wexford that was up -and not their county. I suppose it is the clan system which -differentiates Irishmen by their counties and their towns. Dublin is -heterogeneous, perhaps. It has, at all events, few distinguishing -characteristics, whereas Cork and Waterford men are as widely apart -almost as though they were of different nationalities; and both are -agreed in despising Dublin, although Dublin has made history in the last -hundred years--national history--more than either. - -[Illustration: A WICKLOW GLEN.] - -The men who were the first begetters of the Rebellion, and the men who -saved Ireland for the English Crown, were alike men of Anglo-Irish -blood. The Rebellion was put down by the Irish yeomanry, as English -statesmen had to acknowledge, however little they liked the methods of -their allies. The yeomanry did not make war with rose-water, any more -than they precipitated the Rebellion by gentle methods. It is a bloody -and brutal chapter of Irish history, and the memories of it accounted -for the religious animosities which I remember in my youth, which are -fading out as the memories of the Rebellion are fading. The year 1798 -has ceased to be a landmark in Irish life. When I was a child, there yet -lived people who could tell at first hand or second hand of the terrible -happenings of those days. People used to say, fixing an age: "He was -born the year of the Rebellion." Now all that has passed away. Even in -those times it was becoming more customary to date events by the year of -the Big Wind, 1839. Now, with the establishment of parish -registers--which did not come in in Ireland till the sixties--and the -spread of newspapers and cheap knowledge generally, such landmarks are -no longer required; and the Big Wind of 1903 has wiped out the memory of -its predecessor. - -In the mountains of Wicklow the insurgents of those days found their -refuges and their fastnesses and their graves. I remember having seen -somewhere near Roundwood, in the Wicklow Mountains, in the midst of a -ploughed field a long strip of greenest grass covering the grave of many -rebels. The plough had gone round it ever since then, but not a sod of -it had been turned up; it had remained inviolate. - -A great deal of Irish history gathers round the Rebellion--_the_ -Rebellion, the Irish yet call it, as though there had never been any -other. The men who made it were literary men, in a more vital sense than -the men of '48, who were also literary. Two books of that day stand out -pre-eminently--Lord Edward Fitzgerald's "Life and Letters," edited by -Thomas Moore, and the Journal of Theobald Wolfe Tone. Lord Edward had an -exquisite style. His letters are the frank revelation of a beautiful and -gallant and innocent mind and heart. Without deliberation, without -knowledge, his family letters achieved the highest art. They are -immortal, imperishable things. - -Then Tone's Journal is as remarkable a human document. Tone swaggers -through these pages better than any hero of romance. Life, after all, -is the greatest artist, and one does not say, "Here is a true Dumas -hero! Here is a true Stevenson hero!" For Life is better than her -children. - -Nearly all the United Irish leaders left memoirs or journals behind -them. There was, perhaps, something of the self-consciousness of the -French Revolution in this keeping a journal in the face of battle. -Anyhow, we are grateful to Holt, to Teeling, to Cloney, for keeping -alive for us those days and those men. - -In Lady Sarah Napier's letters you also get most vivid glimpses of the -Rebellion--as, indeed, you do in the letters of the whole Leinster -family. Mary Ledbetter, that gentle Quakeress, of Ballitore, has told -her experiences of the Rebellion in Kildare; there is Bishop Stock's -Narrative of the French landing at Killala and those days in which he -entertained willy-nilly the French leaders and found them the most -considerate of guests. In fact, there is a whole library of Rebellion -literature. - -I ask pardon for treating Wicklow and Wexford as though they were the -theatre of '98, and nothing more; but, indeed, in the story of Wexford -the Rebellion stands up like White Mountain and Mount Leinster, and one -finds little else to say. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE NORTH - - -Between Dublin and Newry there is not much to see or to remember except -that Cromwell sacked Drogheda with a thoroughness, and that at Dundalk -Edward Bruce, the brother of Robert, was crowned King of Ireland. The -Mourne Mountains and Carlingford Lough bring us back to characteristic -Ireland. Beyond them one enters the manufacturing districts--that -north-east corner of Ireland which no Celt looks upon as Ireland at all. -In speech, in character, in looks, the people become Scotch and not -Irish. One has crossed the border and Celtic Ireland is left behind. - -In the north-east corner of Ulster they are all busy money-making and -money-getting. The North of Ireland has admirable qualities--thrift, -energy, industry, ambition, capacity. In other parts of Ireland you find -these qualities here and there; they are mainly, but not altogether, the -qualities of the Anglo-Irish--that is, in so far as they are a business -asset. The Celt has no real capacity for money-making, though at the -wrong end of the virtue of thrift--that dreariest of the virtues--he may -accumulate it. He will put an enormous deal of energy into something -that does not pay him in hard cash. Honorary positions are greedily -sought after by the Irish everywhere. They will run any number of -societies for nothing, will do the business of Leagues, of the Poor Law, -of the County Councils. The energy shown by the Celt in doing the public -business would enrich him if applied to his own. He has a large capacity -for public business, and an extraordinary readiness to do it, which is, -I suppose, the reason why he does the public business of America, while -non-Irish Americans sit by and grumble at his way of doing it. - -In Ireland and in America he does hard manual labour, but somehow the -genius of finance is not his. His hard work is on the land in one form -or another. Now and again he may build up quite a considerable fortune -in petty shop-keeping--the big traders are nearly all Anglo-Irish--but -when he does, his sons become professional men and the business ceases -to be. One can hardly imagine in Celtic Ireland what occurs every day in -English business life, where the son of a successful business man may be -a public-school man, a University man, and have had all the advantages -of wealth, and yet succeed his father in the business. And his son -succeeds him, and so on. This, in Celtic Ireland, would, I fear, be -taken as indicative of a pettifogging spirit. The Anglo-Irishman, on the -contrary, succeeds to the business his father has made, even though he -be a University man; and the Grafton Street shops are often run by men -who are graduates and honourmen of the University, and yet do not -disdain to be seen in their shops. - -There is nothing Irish about North-East Ulster except the country -itself, which does not materially alter its character, because it is -studded with factories. From the streets of Belfast you see the Cave -Hill, as from easy-going Dublin you see the Dublin Mountains. Perhaps -there is something of exuberance caught from the Celt in the -paraphernalia and ceremonial of the Orange Society. Who can say how much -of poetry it may not mean, that crowded hour of glorious life which -comes about mid-July, when men who have worked side by side in amity all -the rest of the year suddenly become bitter enemies, when the wearing of -an Orange sash and the sight of an Orange lily stir a fever in the -blood? - -Apart from such occasions, they are given in Belfast to minding their -own business, and minding it very well. The Belfast man is very shrewd, -but he has a great simplicity withal. He has none of the uppish notions -of the Celt, and though he makes money he does not make it to display -it. He is blunt and brusque in his speech and manner, and so not unlike -his Lancashire brother. He lives simply. In public matters he has the -priceless advantage, in Ireland, of knowing what he wants; and he -usually gets it, unless his demands be too outrageous. He is a hard man -of business, but in his human relationships he is kind and sincere. I -have known exiles of Dublin who went to Belfast in tears, and for the -first months or years of their residence were always sighing after -Dublin. When, however, they came to know the man of the North--he takes -a good deal of knowing--nothing would induce them to return to Dublin. - -Like his Scottish progenitors, he stands by the Bible. There is as much -Bible-reading in the fine red-brick mansions of Belfast as there is in -Scotland. He does not produce literature. The more artistic parts of -Ireland look down on him as one to whom "boetry and bainting" are as -unacceptable as they were to the Second George. But he encourages solid -learning, and he endows seats of learning as generously as does the -American millionaire, who in this respect offers an example to his -English brother. The Belfast man has the Scottish love of education. He -has many of the homespun Scottish virtues, and much less than the -Scottish love of money. - -At the very gates of Belfast you find the Irish country. The Glens of -Antrim are as Irish as Limerick or Clare. They are very beautiful, and -not much exploited. There is also the Giant's Causeway to see. The -legend of its construction is that Finn, the Irish giant, invited a -Scotch giant over to fight him, and generously provided the Causeway for -him to cross by; but he played a nasty trick on him, for he pretended to -the Scottish giant when he came that he was his own little boy. "If you -are the little son, what must your father be?" the Scottish giant is -reported to have said before taking to his heels. - -I do not believe the story. I believe that the Scottish giant came and -stayed. You see his children all over North-East Ulster. - -There are women-poets whom one associates with the North--Moira O'Neill -of the Glens, and Alice Milligan, a daughter of Belfast. They are both - - "Kindly Irish of the Irish - Neither Saxon nor Italian," - -nor Scottish. - -[Illustration: THE RIVER LEE.] - - - - -Cork and Thereabouts - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -CORK AND THEREABOUTS - - -There is something of rich and racy association about the very name of -Cork--something that suggests joviality, wit, a warm southern -temperament. Corkmen only out of all Ireland hold together. The rest of -Ireland may be fissiparous, disunited. Corkmen cleave closer than -Scotsmen to one another, and to be a Corkman is to another Corkman a -cloak that covers a multitude of sins. A Corkman in Dublin will have -friends in all sorts of unlikely places. What matter though a man be in -a humble rank of life--a cabman, a policeman, a postman, even a -scavenger! So he be a Corkman, he has an appeal to the heart of his -brother Corkman. It is a Freemasonry. There is nothing else like it in -Ireland, nor anywhere else, so far as I know; for the Scotsman coming -into England may draw other Scotsmen to follow him, but in the Scotch -sticking together there is less real affection than there is in the case -of the Corkman. To be able to exchange memories of the Mardyke, of the -River Lee, of Shandon and Sunday's Well, is to make Corkmen brothers -all the world over. Cork looks on itself as the real capital of Ireland, -and has always its eye on a day when Dublin will be dispossessed. - -It has a most excellent situation on the River Lee, and is surrounded by -all manner of natural beauties. There is plenty of business stirring, -and there is a good deal of opulence in Cork, where, Corkmen being men -of taste, they display it in their houses, their way of living and on -the persons of their beautiful women, with the irresistible Cork brogue -to crown all their other charms. Cork is nothing if not artistic. She -has produced artists of all descriptions--poets, painters, great -newspaper men (was not Delane of the _Times_ a Corkman?), musicians, -sculptors, orators, preachers. The words roll off the Cork tongue sweet -as honey. There is something extraordinarily rich, gay and alluring -about Cork and Cork people. They were always audacious. They set up -Perkin Warbeck as a Pretender to the English Crown, clad him in silks -and velvets, and demanded his acknowledgment at the hands of the Lord -Deputy. I do not know that as a city Cork took a great part in any of -the many Irish rebellions. It would make a city of diplomatists because -of its honeyed tongue. Queen Elizabeth, they say, was the first one to -talk of Blarney, which is a Cork commodity. There was a certain -McCarthy, Lord of Blarney, who would not come in and submit to the -Queen's forces, though week by week he promised to come and kept the -Queen's anger off by cozening words. "It is all Blarney," the Queen came -to say of fair words that meant nothing; but that is a derivation I -somewhat suspect. I do not know what Cork was doing in the Desmond -Rebellion, of the results of which Spenser has left us so harrowing a -description. She was perhaps enjoying herself after the fashion of that -day. Spenser married a Cork-woman, and has enshrined her in the -"Epithalamion," the most beautiful love-poem in the English language. -Cork has its links with the Golden Age of England, for Raleigh was at -Youghal, and Spenser at Kilcolman close by; and in Raleigh's house at -Youghal they show you the oriel in which Spenser sat and read the -"Faerie Queene" to his host, the Shepherd of the Ocean. Youghal and all -that part of the country round about Cork is steeped in traditions and -memories. St. Mary's Collegiate Church at Youghal might be in an English -town, and there are malls and promenades in those parts, with high, -crumbling houses, which suggest the English civilization of the Middle -Ages and not the Irish civilization before the Norman Conquest. The -Normans were great church-builders, but of their churches, as in the -case of the old Abbey of St. Francis at Youghal, there remain now only -ruins--a naked gable standing up amid a wilderness of graves, buried in -coarse grasses, which, when I was there, had a greater decency towards -the dead than had the living. For it is strange that the Irish, who love -the dead, have little piety towards their graves. - -From Youghal Sir Walter Raleigh sailed away to Virginia on his last -disastrous voyage. Spenser had gone back to London earlier than that, -heart-broken by the loss of his little son, who was burnt to death in a -fire at Kilcolman Castle. Raleigh and Spenser had received grants of the -lands of the attainted Desmonds. Very little profit either had of them, -and Raleigh's lands passed to the Earl of Cork, commonly called "the -Great," whose flaring chapel destroys the quiet of St. Mary's dim aisles -and chancel. Never was there so worldly a monument as this of Robert -Boyle, his mother, his two wives, and his nine children, all in -hideously painted and decorated Italian marble. The fierce eyes of the -great Earl are something to remember with dismay. - -I recall the evidence the great Earl adduced to prove that Sir Walter -did really hand him over his Irish estates on the eve of that journey -to Virginia--for a small consideration of money and plenishing for the -expedition. "If you do not take the lands, some Scot will have them," -said, or is reported to have said, Sir Walter, which reminds us that -Jamie had succeeded Elizabeth, and was already transplanting his -Scots--Jamie, who was to keep so brilliant a bird as Sir Walter in so -squalid a cage as a prison till he made up his mind to send him to the -block. Youghal is haunted by Sir Walter and Spenser. My memories of the -place in a windy autumn are brightened by sudden gleams, as of splendid -attire and golden olive faces with the Elizabethan ruff and the -Elizabethan pointed beard. - -The Blackwater, which runs through Youghal, dropping into the sea at -that point, had at Rhincrew Point its House of Knights Templars. From -Youghal they also sailed away in search of El Dorado, but a heavenly -one. May they have found it! - -And also there is Templemichael, of the Earls of Desmond, the southern -branch of the Fitzgeralds, which Cromwell battered down for "dire -insolence." There is a story of a Desmond lord who was buried across the -water at Ardmore, the holy place of St. Declan, where there is a -pilgrimage and a patronage to this day. But holy as Ardmore was and is, -Earl Gerald could not sleep there. He wanted to be back at -Templemichael, where his young wife lay in her lonely grave. So that -night after night there came a terrible cry, "Garault Arointha! Garault -Arointha!"--that is to say: "Give Gerald a ferry!" So at last some of -his faithful followers rowed over by night, took up the body of Earl -Gerald, and carried it back to Templemichael and to the dead Countess's -side. And after that Earl Gerald slept in peace. - -My memory of Youghal in that far-away windy autumn is compounded of -three or four things. There was purple wistaria hanging in great masses -over the walls of the college which was the foundation of one of the -Desmonds. There was provision there for so many singing men--twenty, was -it?--who were to sing in St. Mary's choir. The great Earl of Cork had a -great maw, one that never suffered from indigestion. The revenues of St. -Mary's College went the same way as Sir Walter's slice of the Desmond -lands. Then, again, in a little shop-window of the town, there was a -glorious show of fruit--great scarlet-skinned tomatoes, gorgeous plums -and pears and apples, which reminded one that Raleigh had planted -orchards at Affane, on the Blackwater. As a rule, fruit is sadly to seek -in a small Irish town, although Cork produces some of the finest fruit -I have ever seen. Then, again, there was a room in Raleigh's house, -Myrtle Grove, unlit save for the flicker of firelight, the darkness all -about us, and an old voice bidding us to notice the earthy smell, which -was supposed to enter the room from a subterranean passage that led to -St. Mary's. - -Again, I have another widely different memory. It is of a fine, tall, -beautifully-complexioned girl standing behind the counter of a draper's -shop, her shining red-golden head showing against a background of little -plaid shawls and kerchiefs, while she lamented in her wailing southern -brogue the fact that no one could hope to get married in Youghal, unless -one had L300 to buy an old "widda-man"; and they were all the men that -were going. - -I like to get back from Youghal and its ghosts, and Rosanna, who never -thought of rebelling against the marriage customs of her forbears, to -cheerful Cork of the living and not the dead, with her tramcars, her -jingles--the curious covered car which takes the place of the outside -car in other Irish towns--her citizens laughing and button-holing each -other with a greater gaiety than the Dubliners; her excellent shops, her -beautiful girls promenading Patrick Street, her club-houses, her -churches, her Queen's College, and all the rest of it, down to her -river with its busy steamers. Cork's citizens live outside her gates, at -Monkstown, at Blackrock, at Glenbrook; and the busy steamers carry them -to and fro by the loveliest of waterways. "Are the steamers punctual?" I -asked a Cork friend. "Is it punctual?" repeated he. "They're the most -punctual things in Ireland, for they always get in before their time." - -Father Mathew is one of Cork's memories; Father Prout is another; Dr. -Maginn is another. But the list of Cork's worthies is a long one, and I -shall not enter upon it here. - -[Illustration: RALEIGH'S HOUSE, MYRTLE GROVE.] - -Cork has the most enervating climate for one who comes to it from more -northern latitudes. It is always soft and warm, and often wet. "Good -heavens!" said John Mitchel, when he came back from twenty years or so -of Australia, gliding in by Spike Island in that same silver mist of -rain in which he had gone out, "isn't that shower over yet?" The flowers -are wonderful in Cork, as well as the fruit. I have seen the suburban -gardens of Corkmen a luxuriance of vivid, closely packed, overflowing -blossom. Myrtles and fuchsias grow in the open air. There are hedges of -fuchsias at Killarney. There are hydrangeas also; but the same is true -of Dublin and its precincts. No one coming in from outside has energy to -do anything in Cork. But the Corkman lacks nothing of energy, nothing -of the joy of life. He is a keen business man, and there is plenty of -industrial enterprise. He is interested in the affairs of the world at -large and of Cork in particular. He has his enthusiasms. He is a -tremendous politician, and does not mind being on the losing side so -long as it is the right one. He is a sportsman and a bit of a gambler; -he makes love and is a good friend. The place is full of wit and gaiety -and humour. His standard of living when he has money, or ought to have -it, is an unusually high one for Ireland. Some of those successful -merchants live, I am told, like merchant princes. He is lavish and -generous, and fond of display--altogether a rich, abundant, -highly-coloured character. He lives in an atmosphere of incessant wit -and humour. Hardly a man in Cork but has his nickname. "There goes Billy -Boulevard," you hear, and you are told that the gentleman so designated -desired to embellish Patrick Street with trees. But it was in Dublin -that they called one who had made his money in pneumatic tyres, and was -exalted above his humbler neighbours, "Lord Tyre and Side-on." - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -GALWAY - - -Galway is so synonymous with racy Irish life that a peep at Ireland must -be incomplete unless it includes a peep at Galway. It is full of the -strangest monuments of the past. It was once a town of the Irishry, in -the O'Flaherty country. But with the Norman Conquest there came in that -group of Anglo-Norman families known as the Tribes, who in course of -time went the way of all their compeers, becoming more Irish than the -Irish. "Lord!" said Edmund Spenser, "how quickly doth that country alter -men's natures!" The Tribes were, and are--for happily there are still -the Tribes of Galway--thirteen, viz.: Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, -D'Arcy, Font, French, Joyce, Kirwan, Lynch, Martin, Morris, and -Skerrett. These Tribes became responsible in time for so much of the -wild and picturesque life of the Irish gentry of the eighteenth -century--the duelling, the drinking, the racing, the gambling, the -general devil-may-care life--that Galway looms more largely, perhaps, -than any town in the social history of Ireland. Galway drew up a code -for duellists known as the Galway Code; and in the irresponsible life of -the eighteenth century, such as you find in Miss Edgeworth's "Castle -Rackrent" and in Lever's novels, the life which the Encumbered Estates -Act put a period to, the names of the Tribes figure oftener than more -Celtic names. For the picturesque wildness of Irish life was the -wildness of the settlers rather than the wildness of the native Irish. - -However, in the great days of Galway's trade with Spain and other -continental ports, traces of which are scattered all over the old ruined -city, which is as much Spanish as it is Irish, the Tribes were just -merchant princes, not anticipating the time when, _more Hibernico_, they -should fling trade to the winds and become the maddest crew of -dare-devils known in the social life of any country. And here I find, in -the record of the duelling and drinking days, traces and indications of -the English descent of the roysterers. For certainly there was a lack of -humour in the actors, though none for the spectator; there was a -solemnity--not always a drunken solemnity--in the way their pranks were -performed that was not Celtic; for the Celt has a terrible sense of the -ridiculous. Doubtless it was from his Anglo-Irish betters that the Celt -derived the habit of "trailing his coat" through a fair when he was -spoiling for a fight, though, to do him justice, he practised it only -when he was drunk. The Anglo-Irish duellists inaugurated the custom. -When on no pretext could they find a friend or neighbour to kill or be -killed by, they went out and "trailed the coat," like the gentleman who -rode on a tailless horse, with his face to the crupper, and, seeing an -unwary stranger smile, immediately challenged him, and rode home in huge -delight to look to his pistols. They were extremely solemn over their -pranks. One wonders how often the Celtic servants had a smile behind -their hand at such strange goings-on of their masters, which would not -have been possible to the self-conscious Celt. - -Over one of the gates of Galway was the pious legend, "From the -ferocious O'Flaherties, good Lord deliver us!" I have heard of other -inscriptions referring to other Irish septs over the remaining gates of -the town, but those I think are apocryphal. The fact remains that the -Tribes, having seized the town of the Irish after their rapacious Norman -manner, were obliged to wall it against the O'Flaherties, and doubtless -often slept ill at night because of the wild Irish battering at their -gates, as did their brothers of the English pale up in Dublin. - -Galway would at that time have been well worth sacking. A traveller of -the early seventeenth century reports: "The merchants of Galway are rich -and great adventurers at sea: their commonalitie is composed of the -descendants of the ancient English families of the towne: and rairlie -admit of any new English among them, and never of any of the Irish; they -keep good hospitalitie and are kind to strangers, and in their manner of -entertainment and in fashioninge and apparellynge themselves and their -wives do most preserve the ancient manners and state of annie towne that -ever I saw." - -They had their enactments against the Irish, including the MacWilliam -Burkes, who had gone over to the Irish, bag and baggage: - -"That none of the towne buy cattle out of the country but only of true -men. - -"That no man of the towne shall sell galley, bote or barque to an -Irishman. - -"That no person shall give or sell to the Irish any munition as -hand-povins, calivres, poulter, leade, nor salt-peter, nor yet large -bowes, cross-bowes, cross-bowe strings, nor yearne to make the same, nor -any kind of weapon on payn to forfayt the same and an hundred -shyllinges. - -"If anie man being an Irishman to brag and boste upon the towne, to -forfayt 12 pence. - -"That no man of this towne shall ostle or receive into their house at -Christmasse or Easter nor no feast elles, anny of the Burkes -MacWilliams, the Kellies, nor no septs elles, without the licence of the -Maior and Council on payn to forfayt L5. That neither O' ne Mac shall -strutt or swagger through the streets of Galway." - -You still find traces of the commerce of the Tribes with Spain, not only -in the old Spanish buildings of the town, but in the black Spanish eyes -and hair of the people. I remember to have been struck in Donegal by a -dignity, a loftiness of bearing, as well as by a height and stateliness -of the peasant people that made one murmur "Spanish" to one's own ear. - -One of the sights of Galway is the ruins of the house from the window of -which James Lynch Fitz Stephen, a Chief Magistrate of Galway in 1493, -hanged his only son for murder with his own hand, lest the townspeople -should rescue him. The house is called The Cross Bones nowadays, and is -situated most appropriately in Dead-Man's Lane. There remains but an old -wall, with a couple of doorways having the pointed Spanish arches and -some ornate window-spaces above. There is a tablet on the wall, bearing -a skull and cross-bones, with the inscription: - - "Remember Deathe, - Vaniti of vanitis, all is but vaniti." - -Some people believe that this Lynch is the "onlie begetter" of Lynch -Law. This, however, I do not believe, and I think it more likely to have -been derived from a Lynch of the mining-camps in Southern California, -who was the first to promulgate and put in practice the wild justice of -execution without judge or jury. Anyhow, I cannot see that the example -of James Lynch FitzStephen was an admirable one, and I do not believe -the legend that he died heart-broken as a result of his own stern sense -of justice. - -The palmy days of the Tribes were over with the Reformation, for they -did not cease to be Catholics, and so were in no great favour with the -predominant partner. Galway also stood for the King against the -Parliament, was besieged and taken by the Parliamentary soldiers under -Ludlow, who stabled his horses, according to report, in St. Nicholas's -Cathedral. After that Galway's great prosperity as a trading centre -passed away, and the Tribes scattered among the ferocious O'Flaherties -and others of their sort and became country gentlemen, with a noble -contempt for trade. The situation of Galway, on its magnificent Bay, -still cries out for commerce. The spectacle of Galway as a port of call -for American steamers has dangled before the eyes of the Galwegians for -a long time without being realized, although they made preparations for -it long ago, by building a hotel that would house a _Mauretania_-load of -travellers. - -Only the other day I listened to a Galway Tribesman conversing with -someone who had lived in Galway, and who asked after the old places and -persons. "What's become of So-and-so?" "He's just the same as ever; not -a bit of change in him. He comes home every night strapped to the -outside car to keep him from falling off." "And what's become of -So-and-so?" "Oh, he's done very well for himself. His father says, -'Mac's all right; he's got the run of a kitchen in Yorkshire,' meaning -that he married an English heiress." - -This conversation made me feel that to some extent Galway stands where -it did. - -[Illustration: GLENCOLUMBKILLE HEAD. _PAGE 70._] - -The Claddagh fishing village by Galway is something not to be missed. It -keeps itself to itself, with a reserve Celtic or Spanish or anything -else you like, but not English. It used to be ruled by its own King, who -was just a fisherman like his subjects, and was not exalted in his -manner of living by his royal state. He was chosen for his governing -powers and his mental and moral qualities, and his subjects were ruled -by him with a despotism that was never anything but fatherly. They -intermarried, too, among themselves--I do not know if this usage -survives--and their ring of betrothal, handed on from one generation to -another, has a design of two hands holding up a heart. At the Claddagh -they still have the Blessing of the Sea, but they will not make a show -of it, and even the Galway people are kept in ignorance of the time when -the ceremony takes place. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -DONEGAL OF THE STRANGERS - - -It once fell to my lot to make a hasty scamper through Donegal from end -to end; that is to say, as far as possible, I made the circuit of the -county, beginning with Ballyshannon, following the coast-line, with -divergences, from Donegal to Gweedore, going round by Bloody Foreland, -by Falcarragh and Dunfanaghy, and ending up by way of Letterkenny at -Ballyshannon again. I took ten or twelve days to do it--perhaps a -fortnight--staying each night at an inn. To Gweedore I devoted the best -portion of a week. Now, in that scamper I had a very characteristic peep -at Ireland. I missed, indeed, the wild gaiety of the South. Donegal -people are somewhat sorrowful. But I found plenty of types and racy life -nevertheless. - -It is a good many years ago now; and travelling in Donegal has been -simplified since then by the light railways with which the names of Mr. -Arthur Balfour and Mr. Gerald Balfour are gratefully associated. When I -was there I drove through the country, only taking the train from -Letterkenny to Ballyshannon on my return journey; and it was an -excellent, though somewhat expensive, way of seeing the country. -However, the hospitality was so wonderful that one only slept and -breakfasted in one's hotel. For the rest, the kind priests were only too -eager to give hospitality to myself and my companion. - -At Ballyshannon we stayed a night in one of those enormous old hotels -with a maze of winding passages, which suggest to one in the dead waste -and middle of the night that in case of a fire one never could get out. -The next day we came upon the first of the priests, who carried us off -to see everything that could be seen of Ballyshannon, including a visit -to Abbey Assaroe, which we knew already in William Allingham's poetry. -To the grief of these kind friends of ours, we insisted on going off the -same afternoon to Donegal town, to which we were driven by "Wullie"--the -first "Wullie"--a red-haired, taciturn youth, who suspected us of -laughing at him and was closer than an oyster. Your English man or woman -is the truly expansive person. When you want to get at anything from an -Irishman you've got to sit down and wait for the charmed moment when his -suspicion of you is put to sleep. Dr. Douglas Hyde got his Religious -Songs and Love Songs of Connacht by sitting over the turf fire in a -cabin, taking a "shaugh" of the pipe and offering a fill of it, passing -round a flask of poteen, perhaps. It might be hours, and it might be -days, and it might be weeks before you broke down the barrier of -reserve, well worth the breaking-down if you have "worlds enough and -time." You can't travel twenty miles in an English third-class carriage -before you have the intimate confidence of your fellow-passengers. You -are told which relative died of cancer, with harrowing details, which is -in a madhouse, and which in gaol; for the plain English people are the -most unreserved in the world, while the Irish are the most reticent. -And if you win a flow of talk from the Irish peasants, be sure they are -talking round what they have to tell by way of leading you away from it; -for an Irishman uses language to conceal his thoughts. - -We hadn't "worlds enough and time" for "Wullie." His lips were -tight-locked from Ballyshannon to Donegal. - -The next day we saw what was to be seen of the Castle, under the -guidance of the parish priest, whom we met walking in the Diamond. We -introduced ourselves to him. He was a delightful, humorous, stately, -kindly old man, and he looked at us when he met us with an eye that -asked: "Who are you and what is your business in Donegal?" It is a way -the priests have in the remote parts of Ireland, where they are -everything to their flocks. Being reassured, he gave his day to our -entertainment, taking us to see some of his parishioners when he had -shown us all the town contained of interest. - -Killybegs I remember as a beautiful bay, big enough to take in the whole -English fleet. The next day we went on to Kilcar, where we found our -third priest, who lived in a delightfully clean little cabin with a clay -floor. His housekeeper was barefooted, but he had dainty table -appointments. I remember that he had very good china, and he explained -that his mother had given it to him. He was the son of rather wealthy -people. We had a meal of fish, with a little fruit to follow; and while -we ate it a messenger was out prospecting for the loan of an outside car -for the priest. Sure enough, by the time we had finished the meal the -car was at the door, and our host carried us off to see the Caves of -Muckross, some six miles away. Incidentally, we saw Bunglass, that -magnificent cliff-face where Slieve League drops into the sea. I -remember a visit we paid to a cottage where a father sat at the loom -weaving, the mother was carding wool, and a black-haired daughter was -sprigging muslin by the little narrow square window. A scarlet geranium -in the window seemed to be in her night-black hair, and her tears flowed -when our little priest spoke to her. He told us that her lover had -married a richer girl and gone to America. I can remember quite well -walking up a mountain road where the friendly little lambs came and -trotted a bit of the way with us, and the voice of the young priest as -he told us of the innocence of the people--"not a sin in it from year's -end to year's end," for they were too poor to drink--and how his -ambition was to get away to the East End of London, where there was -something to do for a born fighter. - -A night at the excellent hotel at Carrick and the next day we were at -Glencolumkille, that wild and lonely glen between the mountains and the -sea, with the majestic Glen Head standing out into the Atlantic. In the -Glen are twelve crosses of stone, where pilgrims make the stations in -honour of St. Columba or Columkille, the Dove of the Churches. Above -Lough Gartan, on Eithne's Bed, he was born, and any who lie there shall -not have the pangs of home-sickness; wherefore many emigrants stretch -themselves upon that rocky couch before they cross "the Green Fields to -America." The Glen is full of the noise and thunder of the waves, and -Slieve League lies superbly up in the sky, reminding one of Browning-- - - "The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay." - -At Glencolumkille we met the fourth of our priests--a tall, thin, -Spanish-looking youth, who came to meet us with a collie at his heels. -Glencolumkille is very lonesome. There is only an Irish-speaking peasant -population of the very poorest, and the nearest one with whom our priest -could exchange a word on his own level was some seven Irish miles away. -He gave us an impression of immense loneliness, although his joy at -having someone to entertain irradiated his melancholy, handsome face -with cheerfulness. He was rejoiced that by the greatest of good luck he -had a bit of meat for dinner, for fish is the staple food of the Glen. -He was very much interested in news from the great world, and produced -with some pride a copy of the _Daily Telegraph_, several days old, to -prove that he kept in touch with the world. He told us that he was the -youngest of a large family, and his home was as far away as Dublin. Over -nearly a score of years I have the most vivid impression of the lonely -figure, the dog at his heels, as we left Glencolumkille behind us. He -had made us free of his house and hospitality, and parted from us with -the utmost unwillingness. - -Ardara, Glenties, Dungloe--I think of them, little villages lying -amongst gorgeous mountains, and remember that in those gloomy and -frowning fastnesses the Irish were safe against Cromwell's planters, -since what man who could choose, not being Irish, would desire to live -in such a place? A Donegal farm is something to remember. The one crop -the ground grows freely is stones--stones in millions, boulders as great -sometimes as a small house. There are glens that are nothing but stones -from end to end, about as promising ground as the Giant's Causeway for a -farmer. In such places you may see a little field, the size of a -tablecloth, snatched from the aridity of Nature by the incredible -industry of man. Everywhere in Donegal man asks Nature for bread and she -gives him a stone, unless it be the harvest of the sea, which he -snatches from her at the price of his life, it may be. - -I saw Donegal in April, softened as much as might be by the wild April -showers and the bursts of April sunshine. The clouds and the mountains, -the cliffs and the sea--Slieve League, Errigal, Muckish, Bunglass, Horn -Head, the Glen Head, Tory Island--were all beautiful beyond telling, -with a wild and stormy magnificence of beauty. I try to imagine their -desolation in winter and fail to realize it. - -Ardara I remember by the beauty of Glengesh on an April day, with a -hundred streams running down its sides; and at Ardara we halted on -Sunday, and knelt in the gallery of the church, looking down at the -peasants kneeling in rows on the stone floor before the altar. The doors -were wide open, and birds wheeled in from the sunlight and out again -with flashing wings; and the air was exquisite, fresh and wild and -sweet. - -At Gweedore, as I have said, we tarried nearly a week, held there by the -hospitality of the parish priest, who would have us see everything -thoroughly. We stayed at an idyllic little inn, and were fed on the -best and simplest fare: stirabout, made as only the Irish can make it; -home-made bread; delicious butter, new-laid eggs; little delicate -chickens, with green parsley sauce and boiled bacon, potatoes, and -cabbage, cooked as only the Irish can cook them; for in certain simple -dishes of their own the Irish cannot be beaten. - -[Illustration: A DONEGAL HARVEST.] - -There was a most picturesque waiting-maid, a shy little girl, as pretty -as a picture, who wore a pink cotton frock, and had pink bare feet -showing under it, who had the softest, most appealing of voices. - -At the inn our priest found us, sallying in with his great blackthorn in -his hand to see who were the strange visitors to the Glen. He was a -redoubtable priest--the Law of Gweedore, they called him--and he -sheltered his people as the hen sheltereth her chickens. The Glen was -exquisitely clean from end to end, though starveling poor. But the -priest saw to it that they did not starve. - -For four or five days, perhaps, we abode in this little inn, where the -Glen opens out to the sea. We visited the people in their cottages, -under the guidance of our redoubtable _padre_, and saw all there was to -be seen. His hospitality was unbounded, although at the time there was a -wide and bitter division in politics between us. - -I shall not soon forget the manner of our going. We had come now almost -to the end of our journey, and it was desirable that we should return to -Dublin as quickly as possible. He wanted us to make the journey round by -Bloody Foreland, and we wanted to do it as shortly as possible, striking -inland to meet the mail-car for Letterkenny at, I think, Gortahork. But -we knew better than to say "No" to the Law of Gweedore; so we thought to -slip away early in the morning, and made our arrangements the last thing -at night, after leaving his hospitable roof. - -But the Law of Gweedore knew all that happened in Gweedore. A full hour -before we had appointed for being called we were called. His Reverence -had arranged our conveyance, and _paid for it_--paid also, I think, for -a luncheon-basket. Willy-nilly, we went round by Bloody Foreland and -visited the evicted tenants, crouching under scraws and twigs, in -shelters which suggested the caves of the earth-dwellers rather than -anything fit for man. - -Gortahork I remember as a place where we had a good meal of tea and hot -cakes and eggs, and other things thrown in, for a shilling. And I -remember also the long, long drive to Letterkenny--some forty miles it -was, I seem to remember, but shall not pledge myself to it lest I be -confuted--and how we dashed along the sides of precipices, we on one -side of the car, with our feet almost touching earth, the other side -high in air, being weighted only with empty parcel-post hampers, of -which Donegal needs no great supply; below us--far, far below--a valley -filled in with mighty stones and rocks. The pace was so fast that we -could hardly keep our seats, though well accustomed to that car which -the unlettered English tripper is apt to call "a jolting car"; and the -driver was quite unaware of our discomfort, assuring us with as much -jocularity as a Donegal man permits himself that the horses never were -known to stumble, and that, although an occasional English tourist did -fall off, he or she always "fell soft." - -After all, when I look back to that scamper through Donegal sixteen -years ago, I remember the mountains and the priests. Monuments of a -beautiful hospitality, the priests for me mark the wild ways up and down -Donegal. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -IRISH TRAITS AND WAYS - - -An English person in Ireland may find himself astray because he will -have no clue to the minds of the people. I once heard two English ladies -returning from an Irish trip say to each other across a -railway-carriage, otherwise full of Irish people, that the Irish all -told lies. This was a rash judgment and a harsh one; I do not know what -the occasion of it was. Sometimes the Irish, through their naturally -gracious manners, will say the thing that will please you best to hear -rather than the absolute truth by rule of thumb. There is the -well-known, well-founded complaint about Irish distances; a peasant will -tell you that you are three miles from a place when you are really -seven. Now, of course you may be misled by the difference between the -Irish and English mile; and thereby hangs a tale. The Irish or -Plantation measure was adopted by Cromwell's planted English, so that -they might get a bigger slice of land than was intended for them. But if -you are told you have three Irish miles to go and find that you have -seven, almost certainly the thought uppermost in your misinformant's -mind was: "The crathur! Sure, he'll think nothin' of it if he believes -it's only three miles; and the spring 'ud be taken out of him altogether -if he thought he'd seven weary miles before him yet. And, sure, by the -time he's travelled the three miles he won't be far off the seven." - -The Irish mind, besides being very nimble, is subtle and complicated. It -may have gone off on an excursion before answering you which you in your -Anglo-Saxon plainness would never dream of; and your truth may not be -the Irish truth at all, and yet both of them be the genuine article. - -A very small Irish boy of my acquaintance, being rudely accused of -having told a lie, responded meekly: "I don't think it were really a -lie; I think it were only an imagination." - -"Are there any priests in the town?" you ask an Irishman; and he -replies, there being some half-dozen: "The streets are black with them." - -"You can't always depend on eggs, not if they comes in fresh from the -nest," said an Irish servant to me, when some of the grocer's "new-laid" -eggs had "popped" in the saucepan. The remark was purely consolatory -and was not at all intended to convey that the hens laid stale eggs. - -The Irish "bull," so-called, very often is the result of the -nimble-wittedness of the speaker. He has thought more than he has -expressed, and the bull implies a hiatus. "I'd better be a coward for -ten minutes than be dead all my life" is a famous example of an Irish -bull; but it only means "all the days of my natural life"; so much was -not expressed. - -My harsh critics of the London and North-Western express would doubtless -have found the soft, flattering ways of the Irish false and -hypocritical. One remembers the famous compliment, "No matter what age -you are, ma'am, you don't look it," and the historical compliment of the -Irish coal-porter to one of the beautiful Gunnings: "Sure, I could light -my pipe by the fire of her eye." - -Sometimes a compliment or a wheedling good wish will take a sudden turn. -"May the blessin' of God go afther you!" says an Irish beggar--"may the -blessin' of God go afther you!" The desired alms not being forthcoming, -the blessing flows naturally into--"and never overtake you." - -The beggars are great wits, of a sardonic kind usually. A rather short -friend of mine walking with his tall sister, the two were importuned -fruitlessly by a beggar-woman. Before they passed out of hearing she -called gently to the lady: "Well, there you go! And goodness help the -poor little crathur that hadn't the spirit to say no to you." This -double insult to the supposed husband and wife was very neat. - -A matter-of-fact young sister of mine, having been begged from by a -ragged woman with a string of ragged children at one end of the village, -was importuned at the other end by a man, similarly accompanied, whom -she took rightly to be the woman's mate. "We're poor orphans," whined -the second string of children; "our poor mother's dead and buried." "I -don't believe it," she said; "I met your mother at the other end of the -village." "Take no notice of her, childer," said the man sorrowfully. -"It wouldn't be right to touch a penny of her money. She's an -unbeliever--that's what she is." - -An old beggar-man, to whom I explained apologetically that I was without -my purse, looked at me benevolently. "Never mind!" he said; "you'd give -it if you had it, wouldn't you? But there's one thing I want to tell -you: your dog's gone home without you." I don't quite know how it was -meant, but it conveyed to me a sense of well-meaning failure and -inefficiency generally. - -The salutations in Ireland used to be delightful. I hope it may be long -before they are out of date. "God save you kindly," was the salutation -on the roadside. "God save all here!" you said, entering a house. And if -any work was in progress, you said: "God bless the work!" If they were -churning in the kitchen as you entered it, with the old up-and-down -dasher or "dash," as I knew it, you took a few turns with the dash lest -you should carry off the butter. Butter and milk are things often -charmed away. When I was a young girl, there was at Lucan, in the county -Dublin, a fairy doctor, who was called in if the cows weren't milking -well, or the butter didn't come to the churn, or if the beasts were -ailing. A more Christian thing was to bring the live-stock to the priest -to be blessed, or to bring the priests to the field to bless them, which -is done every year. Even the Orangeman of the North, if he has a cow -ailing, thinks it not amiss to ask for the priest's blessing. All the -same, the Irish Celts, in their superstitions, have a way of rounding on -their good friends, the priests. Priests' marriages--that is, marriages -arranged by the priests--are proverbially unlucky. And to buy the -priest's cow in a fair is notoriously unlucky for the general dealing -of the day, as well as that particular one. - -[Illustration: A HOME IN DONEGAL.] - -The freedom of the people with their superiors is often a -stumbling-block to the stranger; while to the Irish man or woman the -division between classes in England will seem strange and -unnatural--inhuman almost. "That's an elegant new trousers you have on, -Master John," I heard an apple-woman by the kerb say to a young -gentleman. The intimacy is not at all presumptuous; very far from it. -Indeed, Irish people coming to live in England often blunder into -treating their inferiors with the easy intimacy of the life at home, -only to find that it is neither desired nor expected. - -Irish servants of the old class were retainers and very much devoted to -the families they lived with. The conditions were strange and difficult -to those not accustomed to them. You would find a family of the gentry -of the lowest Low Church on terms of tender affection with its -Papistical servants and with the neighbouring peasants. They would have -told you as abstract facts that Home Rule would mean the massacre of the -Protestants, and that already their lands and properties were -partitioned in the secret councils of whatever League happened to be -uppermost at the moment. It would be an article of their creed that the -priests were accountable for all the troubles of Ireland. They would -have consented generally to the axiom that no Irish Papist told the -truth. Yet they would always exempt their own servants, and perhaps -their own tenants, and would fly at you as being anti-Irish if you -suggested a flaw in the Irish character, or even an excellency in the -English, which is almost as bad, if not quite. There are families of -Irish gentlefolk come down in the world whose servants, having feasted -with them, starve with them. One such servant I knew who managed the -whole finances of the family, and laid out the few coins to the greatest -advantage, allotting the supplies with a carefulness which must have -been bitter to her Irish heart. If the family lived too well at the -beginning of the week, it must go hungry at the end. - -In an Irish house the young ladies and gentlemen are very often found in -the kitchen, not in pursuit of the housewifely virtues, but for social -reasons. The kitchen-fire is the best "to have a heat by." The cook will -rake out the ashes and make the fire bright for Master Rody or Miss -Sheila to warm their feet by; and in the kitchen Irish children of the -gentle class get filled to the lips with the peculiarly awful -ghost-stories of the Celt, with old songs and charms and folklore of -one sort or another; sometimes, too, with old legends and stories which -make young rebels of the children of the garrison and perhaps old rebels -as well. There is no nurse so warm and comfortable as a good Irish -nurse, as the little children of the Irish nobility and gentry--invading -or planted families, very often--found, drawing life from an Irish -breast, and wrapped up in a comfortable Irish embrace from all ghosts -and hobgoblins. - -I remember the young daughter of very Evangelical gentlepeople in -Ireland who used to spend her Sunday afternoons, with the full knowledge -of her parents, seated on the kitchen-table reading Papistical -newspapers to the servants, whom she adored, and who adored her with at -least an equal warmth. Her gold watch was the gift of one old servant; -and on the eve of her marriage to a London curate she found pinned to -her pincushion an envelope containing a five-pound note--"For my darling -Miss Biddy, from Mary Anne." - -It has always seemed to me that the tie is closer and tenderer between -the Irish Catholic servant and the Protestant gentry than when the -employers are also of the old religion. It is certain that in the -burning of Scullabogue Barn, and at the Bridge of Wexford, during the -Rebellion, Catholic servants perished with their Protestant employers. - -The tender concern that may be shown for you by an Irish person of whom -you ask the way will stir you to wonderment. "Is it permissible to walk -on the sea-wall?" a friend of mine asked of an Irish policeman. "Sure it -is; but I wouldn't do it if I was you. It 'ud be terrible cowld," was -the reply. "I wouldn't walk it if I was you," you may be answered when -you ask how far a place is; "you wouldn't be killin' yourself--now, -would you?" - -When ladies first rode the bicycle in Ireland they excited different -emotions, according to the character of the looker-on. "What would the -blessed saints in heaven think of you?" the old women used to call out; -but one old man had only compassion for the female cyclist. "God help -yez," he said; "'tis killin' yourselves yez'll be with them little -wheely things, bad luck to them!" - -You will find the soft, insinuating ways in a shop when you make a -purchase or mean to make one. "It looks lovely on you," a shop-assistant -will say, with an air of being dispassionate. "Can you send this home -to-night?" you ask, having concluded your purchase. "Sure, why not?" If -you are English-born and bred, you will be at a loss to say why not. - -A policeman in Dublin will direct you: "You take that turn over there, -an' you go along till you meet a turn on your left, but you'll take no -notice of that; you'll keep straight on, and there'll be another turn, -but you'll take no notice of that. An' after that, you'll come to a -third turn, an' you'll take notice of that, for that's the street you're -after." - -I recognized a countryman of my own in London when I asked a policeman -the way and demurred from his instructions, remarking that I had been -told to approach by a different way. "Sure you can, if you like," he -said, looking at me with his head on one side, "but I wouldn't if I was -you; it 'ud be a terrible long way round." - -An Irishman will always agree with you if he can--or even if he can't. -It is the Irish politeness. If you were to say to him, "Three years ago -to-day I had as bad a cold as ever I had in my life," he will say, "To -be sure you had; I remember it well. 'Twas a terrible dose of a cowld, -all out." This makes the Irish a very agreeable people to live with if -you have not offended them. - -There are one or two virtues, not of the shining sort, which are hardly -virtues at all, but rather vices to the Irish. Thrift is one of these. -Another is its cousin, punctuality. No Irishman holds punctuality in -honour. Irish time is twenty-five minutes later than English time and -takes a deal longer than that to come up with English time. Any time at -all will do for an Irishman. "Punctuality is the thief of time" is one -of his axioms. Above all things, he despises punctuality about -meal-times, and this, I know, will wring an Englishman's withers. An -Irish meal is served whenever it is ready; and if it is never ready at -all, the Irishman will take a snack when he feels he really wants it. No -Irishman is ill-tempered because his meals are late. He prides himself -on his indifference to food as one of the things that set him apart from -the unspiritual Saxon. You could hardly offend an Irishman more than by -accusing him of having a hearty appetite. His meals are all movable -feasts. Oddly enough, the Anglo-Irishman is quite as unpunctual as the -Celt, if not more so. He assimilates the ways of the Celt, while the -Celt remains untouched by his. The Anglo-Irishman is often as good a -trencherman as his English brother, but he would never think of -disturbing the machinery of Irish life so far as to expect his dinner at -a given time. I have been asked to dine in Dublin and have arrived -punctually, only to find the tradesmen's carts delivering the dinner; -and, having grown accustomed to English ways, I have made a frantic -effort to arrive at the appointed hour for a luncheon-party, only to -find the hostess lying down with toothache, and the drawing-room fire -still unlit. - -To be sure, you may arrive at a house at any hour of the day in Ireland -and fall in for a meal. If you arrive at a time within at all measurable -distance of meal-time, you shall not go forth unfed, although you be -press-ganged to stay. I shall never forget the horror of my Irish -friends when they heard that one was allowed to leave an English house -with the dinner-bell in one's ears. "It must be an _awful_ country," -they said; then, detecting something of guilt, perhaps, in my air, they -ventured: "But that wouldn't happen in an _Irish_ house--not in -_yours_." When I confessed that it had happened in mine they changed the -subject. If they had allowed themselves to speak, they would have said -too much. - -I know an Irishman settled in England--a North of Ireland, that is to -say a Scotch-Irishman, and a man of business--who always has the motor -round for a spin as soon as the dinner-bell rings. He cannot keep his -English servants, and is grieved at their perversity, which would keep -him chained to a hot dining-room on an ideal evening for a motor-run. -His guests stay their hunger with sherry and biscuits while they await -his return. - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Peeps at Many Lands: Ireland, by Katharine Tynan - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT MANY LANDS: IRELAND *** - -***** This file should be named 43623.txt or 43623.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/6/2/43623/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - http://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/43623.zip b/43623.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index bea0f9c..0000000 --- a/43623.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/43623-8.txt b/old/43623-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 627fd8e..0000000 --- a/old/43623-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2423 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Peeps at Many Lands: Ireland, by Katharine Tynan - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Peeps at Many Lands: Ireland - -Author: Katharine Tynan - -Illustrator: Francis S. Walker - -Release Date: September 2, 2013 [EBook #43623] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT MANY LANDS: IRELAND *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - PEEPS AT MANY LANDS AND CITIES - -EACH CONTAINING 12 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR - - AUSTRALIA GREECE NEW ZEALAND - BELGIUM HOLLAND NORWAY - BERLIN HOLY LAND PARIS - BURMA HUNGARY PORTUGAL - CANADA ICELAND ROME - CEYLON INDIA RUSSIA - CHINA IRELAND SCOTLAND - CORSICA ITALY SIAM - DENMARK JAMAICA SOUTH AFRICA - EDINBURGH JAPAN SOUTH SEAS - EGYPT KASHMIR SPAIN - ENGLAND KOREA SWEDEN - FINLAND LONDON SWITZERLAND - FRANCE MOROCCO TURKEY - GERMANY NEW YORK WALES - - PEEPS AT NATURE - - WILD FLOWERS AND THEIR WONDERFUL WAYS - BRITISH LAND MAMMALS - BIRD LIFE OF THE SEASONS - THE HEAVENS - - PEEPS AT HISTORY - - CANADA JAPAN - INDIA SCOTLAND - - PEEPS AT GREAT RAILWAYS - - THE LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY -THE NORTH-EASTERN AND GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAYS - -PUBLISHED BY ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK - -SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. - - AGENTS - - AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - 64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK - - AUSTRALASIA OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS - 205 FLINDERS LANE, MELBOURNE - - CANADA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD. - ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE, 70 BOND STREET, TORONTO - - INDIA MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD. - MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY - 309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA - -[Illustration: THE EAGLE'S NEST, KILLARNEY.] - -[Illustration] - - - - - PEEPS AT MANY LANDS - - IRELAND - - BY - - KATHARINE TYNAN - - AUTHOR OF "THE DEAR IRISH GIRL," "AN ISLE IN THE - WATER," ETC. - - WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS - IN COLOUR - - BY - - FRANCIS S. WALKER, R.H.A. - - LONDON - ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK - 1911 - - _First printed November, 1909 - Reprinted October, 1910, and September, 1911_ - - - - -CONTENTS - - -CHAPTER PAGE - - I. ARRIVAL 1 - - II. DUBLIN 6 - - III. THE IRISH COUNTRY 20 - - IV. THE IRISH PEOPLE 27 - - V. SOUTH OF DUBLIN 38 - - VI. THE NORTH 44 - - VII. CORK AND THEREABOUTS 49 - -VIII. GALWAY 58 - - IX. DONEGAL OF THE STRANGER 65 - - X. IRISH TRAITS AND WAYS 76 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - -THE EAGLE'S NEST, KILLARNEY _Frontispiece_ - - FACING PAGE - -A VILLAGE IN ACHILL viii - -SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN 9 - -DUBLIN BAY FROM VICTORIA HILL 16 - -BLARNEY CASTLE 25 - -OFF TO AMERICA 32 - -A WICKLOW GLEN 41 - -THE RIVER LEE 48 - -RALEIGH'S HOUSE, MYRTLE GROVE 57 - -GLENCOLUMBKILLE HEAD 64 - -A DONEGAL HARVEST 73 - -A HOME IN DONEGAL 80 - -DIGGING POTATOES _on the cover_ - - _Sketch-Map of Ireland on p. vii_ - -[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF IRELAND.] - -[Illustration: A VILLAGE IN ACHILL.] - - - - -IRELAND - - - - -CHAPTER I - -ARRIVAL - - -It may safely be said that any boy or girl who takes a peep at Ireland -will want another peep. Between London and Ireland, so far as atmosphere -and the feeling of things is concerned, there is a world of distance. Of -course, it is the difference between two races, for the Irish are mainly -Celtic, and the Celtic way of thinking and speaking and feeling is as -different as possible from the Saxon or the Teuton, and the Celt has -influenced the Anglo-Irish till they are as far away from the English -nearly as the Celts themselves. If you are at all alert, you will begin -to find the difference as soon as you step off the London and North -Western train at Holyhead and go on board the steamer for Kingstown. The -Irish steward and stewardess will have a very different way from the -formal English way. They will be expansive. They will use ten words to -one of the English official. Their speech will be picturesque; and if -you are gifted with a sense of humour--and if you are not, you had -better try to beg, borrow or steal it before you go to Ireland--there -will be much to delight you. I once heard an Irish steward on a long-sea -boat at London Docks remonstrate with the passengers in this manner: - -"Gentlemen, gentlemen, will yez never get to bed? Yez know as well as I -do that every light on the boat is out at twelve o'clock. It's now a -quarter to wan, and out goes the lights in ten minutes." - -There is what the Englishman calls an Irish bull in this speech; but the -Irish bull usually means that something is left to the imagination. I -will leave you to discover for yourself the hiatus which would have made -the steward's remark a sober English statement. - -These things make an Irish heart bound up as exultantly as the lark -springs to the sky of a day of April--that is to say, of an Irish exile -home-returning--for the dweller in Ireland grows used to such pearls of -speech. - -Said a stewardess to whom I made a request that she would bring to my -cabin a pet-dog who, under the charge of the cook, was making the night -ring with his lamentations: "Do you want to have me murdered?" This -only conveyed that it was against the regulations. But while she looked -at me her eye softened. "I'll do it for _you_," she said, with a subtle -suggestion that she wouldn't do it for anyone else; and then added -insinuatingly, "if the cook was to mind the basket?" "To be sure," said -I, being Irish. "Ask the cook if he will kindly mind the basket and let -me have the dog." And so it was done, and the cook had his perquisite, -while I had the dog. - -At first, unless you have a very large sense of humour--and many English -people have, though the Irish who do not know anything about them deny -it to them _en bloc_--you will be somewhat bewildered. Apropos of the -same little dog, we asked a policeman at the North Wall, one wintry -morning of arrival, if the muzzling order was in force in Dublin. - -"Well, it is and it isn't," he said. "Lasteways, there's a muzzlin' -order on the south side, but there isn't on the north, through Mr. L---- -on the North Union Board, that won't let them pass it. If I was you I'd -do what I liked with the dog this side of the river, but when I crossed -the bridge I'd hide him. You'll be in a cab, won't you?" - -After you've had a few peeps at Ireland, you won't want the jokes -explained to you, perhaps, or the picturesqueness of speech -demonstrated. - -Before you glide up to the North Wall Station you will have discovered -some few things about Ireland besides the picturesqueness of the Irish -tongue. You will have seen the lovely coast-line, all the townships -glittering in a fairy-like atmosphere, with the mountains of Dublin and -Wicklow standing up behind them. You will have passed Howth, that -wonderful rock, which seems to take every shade of blue and purple, and -silver and gold, and pheasant-brown and rose. You will have felt the -Irish air in your face; and the Irish air is soft as a caress. You will -have come up the river, its squalid and picturesque quays. You will have -noticed that the poor people walking along the quay-side are far more -ragged and unkempt generally than the same class in England. The women -have a way of wearing shawls over their heads which does not belong -naturally to the Western world, and sets one to thinking of the curious -belief some people have entertained about the Irish being descended from -the lost tribes. A small girl in a Dublin street will hold her little -shawl across her mouth, revealing no more of the face than the eyes and -nose, with an effect which is distinctly Eastern. The quay-side streets -are squalid enough, and the people ragged beyond your experience, but -there will be no effect of depression and despondency such as assails -you in the East End of London. The people are much noisier. They greet -each other with a shrillness that reminds you of the French. The streets -are cheerful, no matter how poor they may be. I have always said that -there is ten times the noise in an Irish street, apart from mere -traffic, than in an English one. An Irish village is full of noise, -chatter of women, crying of children, barking of dogs, lowing of cattle, -bleating of sheep, crowing of cocks, cackling of hens, quacking of -ducks, grunting of pigs. The people talk at the top of their voices, so -that you might suppose them to be quarrelling. It is merely the dramatic -sense. I have heard an Irish peasant make a bald statement--or, at -least, it would have been bald in an English mouth--as though she -pleaded, argued, remonstrated, scolded, deprecated. - -Accustomed to Irish ways, English villages have always appeared very -dead to me. Unless it be on market morning, one might be in the Village -of the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty. I once visited Dunmow of the -Flitch of a golden May-day. It was neither Flitch Day nor Market Day, -and I aver that I walked through the town and saw no living creature, -except a cat fast asleep, right in the midst of the sun-baked roadway. -Such a thing could not have happened in Ireland. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -DUBLIN - - -Dublin is a city of magnificences and squalors. It has the widest street -in Europe, they say, in Sackville Street, which, after the manner of the -policeman and the muzzling order, half the population calls O'Connell -Street. The public buildings are very magnificent. These are due, for -the greater part, to the man who found Dublin brick and left it -marble--that great city-builder, John Claudius Beresford, of the latter -half of the eighteenth century, whose name is at once famous and -infamous to the Irish ear, because when he had made a new Dublin he -flogged rebels in Beresford's Riding-School in Marlborough Street with a -thoroughness which left nothing to be desired except a little mercy. -Beresford, who was one of the Waterford Beresfords, was First -Commissioner of Revenue, as well as an Alderman of the City of Dublin. -Before he went city-building, Dublin was a small place enough. For -centuries it consisted chiefly of Dublin Castle, the two -cathedrals--Patrick's and Christ's Church; Dublin is alone in Northern -Europe in possessing two cathedrals--and the narrow streets that -clustered about them. Somewhere about the middle of the eighteenth -century St. Stephen's Green was built--the finest square in Europe, we -say; I do not know if the claim be well founded. A little later -Sackville Street began to take shape, communicating with the other bank -of the river by ferry-boats. Essex Bridge was at that time the most -easterly of the bridges, and the banks of the river were merely -mud-flats, especially so where James Gandon's masterpiece, the -Custom-House, was presently to rear its stately faade. The latter part -of the eighteenth century was the great age of Dublin. Ireland still had -its Lords and Commons, who had declared their legislative independence -of England in 1782. Society was as brilliant as London, and far gayer. -It was certainly a time in which to go city-building, for these -splendours needed housing. Before Beresford began his plans, calling in -the genius of James Gandon, with many lesser lights, to assist him, -Sackville Street and Dublin generally were as insanitary as any town of -the Middle Ages. Open sewers ran down the middle of the streets. There -was no pretence at paving. The streets were ill-lit by smelly oil-lamps. -The Dublin watchmen found plenty to do, as did their brethren in London, -in protecting peaceful citizens from the pranks of the Dublin brethren -of the London Mohocks in the tortuous and ill-lit streets. Dublin, the -city of the English pale, remained and remains an English city--with a -difference. The Anglo-Irish did the things their London brethren were -doing--with a difference. If there were unholy revels at Medmenham Abbey -on the Thames, they were imitated or excelled by their Irish prototypes, -whose clubhouse you will still see standing up before you a ruin on top -of the Dublin mountains. In many ways the society of Dublin models -itself on London to this day. - -The Lords and Commons of Ireland were already living about the Rotunda -in Sackville Street, Rutland Square, Gardiner's Row, Great Denmark -Street, Marlborough Street, and North Great George's Street, when John -Claudius Beresford began his work. He bridged the river with -Carlisle--now O'Connell--Bridge. He constructed Westmoreland Street -right down to the Houses of Parliament. - -[Illustration: SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN.] - -He built the Custom-House, now a rabbit-warren of Government offices, on -a scale proportioned to the needs of the greatest trading city in -Europe, oblivious of the fact that Irish trade was going or gone; or, -perhaps--who knows?--building for the future. All that part of the city -lying between the new bridge and the Custom-House was laid out in -streets. Meanwhile the nobility and gentry who had town-houses were -seized with the passion for beautifying them. The old Dublin houses were -of an extraordinary stateliness and beauty. Money was poured out like -water on their beautification. The floral decoration in stucco-work on -walls and ceilings still makes a dirty glory in some of the old houses. -Famous artists, like Cipriani and Angelica Kauffmann, painted the -wall-panels and ceilings with pseudo-classical goddesses and nymphs. A -certain Italian named Bossi executed that inlaying in coloured marbles -which made so many of the old mantelpieces things of beauty. The old -Dublin houses still retain their stately proportions, although some of -them have been dismantled and others come down to be tenement-houses. -But there is yet plenty to remind us that Dublin had once its Augustan -Age. - -If you have the tastes of the antiquary, the old Dublin houses and -buildings will afford you matter of great interest. - -In the first place, there is Dublin Castle, which was built by King -John. Of the four original towers, only one now remains. The castle has -been the town residence of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland since Sidney -established himself there in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. For the rest, -it is a congerie of Government offices of one sort or another. - -The castle was built over the Poddle River, which now creeps in -darkness, degraded to a common sewer, under the dark and dismal houses, -and empties itself in an unclean cascade through a grating in the Quay -walls, whence it flows away with the Liffey to the sea. You can visit -the Chapel Royal, if you will, and the viceregal apartments are -sometimes open to inspection if the Viceroy is not in residence. I lived -many years in Dublin without desiring to inspect what may be seen of -Dublin Castle, though I have often stood in the castle yard under the -Bermingham Tower, and, looking up at that great keep, have remembered -how Hugh O'Donnell and his companions escaped by way of the Poddle one -Christmas Eve in the spacious days of great Elizabeth, and how the young -chieftain of Tyrconnel narrowly escaped the frozen death which befell -his companions as they climbed those Dublin mountains over yonder to -find refuge with the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes of the Wicklow Hills. - -Those were the Irish clans that used to make the English burghers of -Dublin shake in their shoes. While they sold their silks or woollens, or -sat at meals or exchange, or said their prayers in their churches, they -never could be sure that the wild Irish cry would not come ringing at -their gates. The O'Byrnes and O'Tooles would swoop down at intervals, -and raid the cattle from the fat pastures of the pale, sweeping back -again with their spoil to their impregnable fastnesses. Some years ago a -Father O'Toole published a book on the Clan of O'Toole, which contained -the genealogical tree of the O'Tooles, tracing their descent without a -break from Noah. This is a matter of interest to me, as I myself am an -O'Toole. - -The history of nations is, after all, the history of men--of men and of -movements--and it is individual and outstanding men who make for us the -milestones of history. Ireland has produced, in proportion to her -population, a more than usual number of outstanding men; and, thinking -of Dublin houses and monuments of one kind or another, we find it is of -men we are thinking, after all. - -Thinking of Christ Church, that beautiful Gothic cathedral, I think of -St. Patrick, because his staff was preserved there, and was an object of -great reverence till it was burnt by a too-zealous reforming Bishop in -the days of Elizabeth. St. Patrick was a very delightful saint. One -loves the legends that gather about him. I like especially how he -wrestled with the angel on Croagh-Patrick, and would not come down from -the mountain till he had been granted his several prayers. There were -three in particular. The first one was that Ireland should never depart -from the Christian faith. "Very well, then," said the angel, "God grants -you that." "Next," said Patrick, "I ask that on the Judgment Day I may -sit on God's right hand and judge the Irish people." "That you can't -have," said the angel. "Be quiet now, and go down from the mountain." -"What!" said Patrick, "is it for this that I have fasted so many days on -the mountain, wrested with evil ones, been exposed to the rain and -tempest, prayed hard, fought temptations--only for this?" "Very well, -you shall have this," replied the angel. "And now that you have your -wish satisfied, go down from the mountain." "Not till my third prayer be -granted." "What! a third prayer?" cried the angel. "You ask too much, O -Patrick, and you shall not have it. You are too covetous." "Was it for -this?" began Patrick again, with a recital of all he had done and -suffered. "Very well, then," said the angel, tired out; "have your third -prayer, but ask no more, for it will not be given to you." "I ask that -all who recite my prayer" (_i.e._, the prayer known as St. Patrick's -Breastplate) "shall not be lost at the Last Day." "Very well, then," -said the angel, "you shall have that; but now go down." "I am content -now," said Patrick; "I will go down." - -He was a fighting saint, despite his many gentlenesses. At Downpatrick, -where he built his cathedral, he took a little fawn which his men would -have killed, and carried it in his breast. I like the description of him -by his friend St. Evan of Monasterevan, which tells us how he was sweet -to his friends, but terrible to his enemies. - -I think of St. Patrick at Christ Church rather than of St. Lawrence -O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, who, with Strongbow, that fierce Norman -who seized Ireland for Henry II. of England, built Christ Church. St. -Lawrence O'Toole's heart lies here in a reliquary. Here also Lambert -Simnel was crowned; but who thinks of that ignoble impostor now? - -Christ Church presents an effect of lightness and brightness very -different from St. Patrick's, in which it seems to me it is always -afternoon, and winter afternoon. Patrick is in a particularly -picturesque slum of the city, in the Earl of Meath's liberty, hard by -the Coombe, which was once a pleasant dell, no doubt, but is now the -raggedest of slums. To the Earl of Meath's liberty came the French -silk-weavers expelled from France after the revocation of the Edict of -Nantes, and established the industry of poplin-weaving there. - -The man with whom St. Patrick's Cathedral is associated is Jonathan -Swift, and for his sake it is perpetually dark. It is haunted by the -tragedy of his life and death. Here Esther Johnson is buried; and over -yonder, in the Deanery House, Swift, a sick man, lay in bed and watched -the torches in the great church when they were making ready her grave. -The strange bitterness of the terrible inscription which commemorates -that most unhappy great man seems to colour the atmosphere of St. -Patrick's. "Where fierce indignation can no more lacerate his heart," he -rests by the side of the woman who was faithful to him with a long -patience, whose death left him to loneliness and madness. - -The whole place is haunted by him, as is the deanery close by and the -old library of Dr. Marsh, which is said to have a ghost that flings the -books about at night. - -What ghosts meet one in the Dublin streets! There is Wesley. He was -visiting the Countess of Moira at Moira House, which now, docked of its -upper story, is the Mendicity, or, as the Irish put it, the "Mendacity" -Institution. It was a splendid mansion when Wesley was there. One room -with a bay-window was lined with mother-o'-pearl. "Alas," said Wesley -prophetically, "that all this must vanish like a dream!" The Moiras were -not only religious: they were cultivated, refined, patriotic in the -truest sense--altogether noble and generous. They received poor Pamela, -Lady Edward Fitzgerald, with kindly open arms when that romantic hero, -Lord Edward, lay dying of his wounds. - -You shall see, if you will, the old House of Lords, preserved in its old -state by the Governors of the Bank of Ireland, who have made it their -board-room. The House of Commons has become the Bank's counting-house, -and there is no trace of its former state. What ghosts you might meet -there at night!--Grattan, Flood, Curran, Hussey Burgh, Plunket, to say -nothing of lesser worthies. Over against the Parliament Houses was -Daly's Club-House, where forgathered the wits, the bucks, the -duellists. There was Buck Whaley, who walked to Jerusalem for a wager, -and for the same reason once sprang out of the window of his house on -Stephen's Green into a carriage full of ladies. That house is now -University College, and has its associations with Newman; and you might -see there some of the most beautiful specimens of the eighteenth-century -decoration still remaining--the Bossi mantelpieces, the stucco-work, the -beautiful old doors of wine-red mahogany, and all the rest of it. Buck -Whaley had a friend, Buck Jones, who is commemorated in Jones's Road. -When I was a little girl--and how long ago that is I shall not tell -you--Buck Jones's ghost still walked the road which is named after him. -You see, Dublin still ranged itself alongside London; and we had our -Buck Whaley and our Buck Jones if London and Bath had their Beau Brummel -and their Beau Nash. - -[Illustration: DUBLIN BAY FROM VICTORIA HILL.] - -Cheek by jowl with the Houses of Parliament is the ancient college of -Queen Elizabeth--the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. That, -too, has memories and ghosts. The University has had illustrious sons. -Swift, Goldsmith, Bishop Berkeley, Edmund Burke, were among them. Swift -was "stopped of his degree for dulness," and had no love for his -_alma mater_. She had other sons, such as Robert Emmet and Theobald -Wolfe Tone and Thomas Davis, among her brightest jewels, though she -would not have it so. She spreads a quiet place of grey quadrangles and -green park and gardens midmost of the city, and she helps to give -dignity to Dublin, already by her Viceregal Court marked as no -provincial town. - -If I were to talk to you of the ancient history of Dublin, this book -would become, not "A Peep at Ireland," but "A Peep at Dublin." You will -see for yourself the ancient houses of the nobility, the Lords and -Commons of Ireland. Some of them have come to strange uses. Aldborough -House is a barracks; Powerscourt House was in my day a wholesale -draper's; Marino, the splendid residence of the Earls of Charlemont at -Clontarf, is in the hands of the Christian Brothers. Many of these old -houses are turned into Government offices. - -"Alas, that all this must vanish like a dream!" said John Wesley. And -how quickly he was justified! In the latter part of the eighteenth -century Dublin prided itself on being the gayest capital in Europe. -Perhaps Dublin had always too many pretensions. However, it was -sufficiently gay and extraordinarily picturesque. The Rutland -viceroyalty marked, perhaps, its highest water-mark of gaiety. It was -said that the Rutlands were sent over "to drink the Irish into -good-humour"--that is, to distract them from serious matters, such as -legislative independence and the like. However that may be, they did set -the capital to dancing. After all, it was always the Anglo-Irish who -counted in the rebellious movements. One has to go as far back as Owen -Roe O'Neill to find a Celtic leader. For the time, at all events, Dublin -gave itself up to the fascinations of the gallant and gay young Duke and -his wonderful Duchess. The Irish allowed that the Duchess was one of the -handsomest women in Ireland. Elsewhere she was reputed among the -loveliest in Europe. We hear of her dancing at a ball attired in light -pink silk, with diamond stomacher and sleeve-knots, and wearing a large -brown hat profusely adorned with jewels. Every night there were balls at -the castle or the Rotunda. The Duchess was dancing Dublin into -good-humour. There were all manner of other social festivities. Every -Sunday the Duchess drove on the North Circular Road, with six -cream-coloured ponies to her phaeton, all the rank and fashion of Dublin -following in coaches-and-six, coaches-and-four, and less pretentious -equipages. There was card-playing; there was hard drinking; there were -all manner of distractions, disedifying and edifying. For then, as now, -the representatives of the King and Queen took the charities under their -wing; and dancing at the Rotunda supported the Rotunda Hospital, to say -nothing of the tax on the waiting sedan-chairs, which put a few hundred -pounds more into the hospital's coffers. - -"Alas, that all this must vanish like a dream!" To be sure, many of the -most illustrious of the Anglo-Irish, more Irish than the Irish, refused -to be either danced or drunk into good-humour. The brilliant viceroyalty -lasted not quite four years, and the gay and handsome Duke left Ireland -in the saddest way, carried high on men's shoulders. - -Afterwards there were other things than dancing. There was the Rebellion -of 1798. There was the Legislative Union with Great Britain, which meant -for Ireland the absence of her Lords and gentry, and the spending in -London of revenues derived from Ireland. - -In the early years of the nineteenth century grass grew in the streets -of Dublin. Famine and pestilence followed each other in monotonous -succession. Emmet's Rebellion broke out in 1804. If you were interested -in such things, you would penetrate the slummy parts of Dublin as far -as Thomas Street to see where, in front of St. Catharine's Church, Emmet -died, and the house where Lord Edward Fitzgerald was arrested. - -Dublin is full of memories, of associations, of ghosts: no city in -Europe is richer in such. There is hardly a stone of her streets which -is not storied. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE IRISH COUNTRY - - -Dublin possesses great natural advantages. The sea, the mountains, the -green country, are at her gates. You take one of her many trams, and at -the terminus you step into solitudes, into "dear secret greenness" of -country; on to expanses of sea-sand, with the waves breaking in little -crisped curls of foam at your feet. She is ringed about with mountains. -She has a most beautiful coast-line. Turn which way you will on leaving -her, you are safe to turn to beauty. Round about her are clustered -various beauties. Beyond the Dublin mountains, the Wicklow Mountains, -into which they gently pass, invite you. The mountains have the most -beautiful colouring. It is an effect of the mists and clouds. I have -seen a mountain red as a rose, and I have seen one black as a black -pansy and as velvety. Sometimes they are veiled in silver, with the soft -feet of the flying rain upon them; and sometimes, because the sun is -shining somewhere, that same rain will be a garment of silver or of the -rainbow. - -She is the greenest country ever was seen. England may think she wears -the green; but as compared with Ireland her green is rust-coloured and -dust-coloured. I have gone over from London in May and have found a -green in Ireland that absolutely made me wink. - - "Sweet rose whose hue, angry and brave, - Bids the rash gazer wipe the eye," - -says Herbert; but the green, which is the eye's comforter of all the -colours, is, in an Irish May, of so intense a greenness as to have -something of the same effect as Herbert's rose. I think of the fat -pasture-lands at the gates of Dublin, as well I know them. In May they -are drifts of greenness, with the cattle sunken to their knees, while -the meadows white with daisies, gold with buttercups, presently to be -brown and green with seeding-grasses, have an exceeding cleanness and -brightness of aspect. Grass-green, milk-white, pure gold--these are -fields of delight. There used to be luxuriant hedges, too, ten or -twelve feet high. What hedges they were in May! with the hawthorn in -full bloom--no one calls it may in Ireland--and, later, the -woodbine--honeysuckle in Ireland is the white and purple clover--and -with the woodbine the sheets of wild roses flung lavishly over every -hedge. Since my young days an improving county surveyor has cut down the -hedges, though not so ruthlessly as here in Hertfordshire, where they -are noted hedgers and ditchers, and so strip the poor things to the -earth almost, just as they are coming into leaf, leaving the roads -pitiless indeed for the summer days. - -I think of the lavish Irish hedges and of the strip of grass white with -daisies which ran either side of the footpath. There was always a clear -stream singing along the ditch. It had come down from the mountains, and -was amber-brown in colour, and clear as glass; it ran over pebbles that -were pure gold and silver and precious stones, now and again getting -dammed around a boulder, making a leap to escape, and coming around the -boulder with a swirl and a few specks of foam floating upon it. Ireland -of the Streams is one of the old names for Ireland, and it is justified; -for not only are there lordly rivers like the Shannon and the -Blackwater, to mention but two of them, but there are innumerable -little streams everywhere, undefiled--at least, as I know them--by -factories. You can always kneel down of a summer's day by one, fill your -two hands full and drink your fill; and that mountain water is better -than any wine. You may track it, if you will, up to the mountains, where -you will find it welling out, perhaps, through the fronds of a -hartstongue fern, the first tiny gush of it; and you will find it -widening out and almost hidden by a million flowers and plants that like -to stand with their feet in water. Or you will see it, cool and deep, -with golden shadows sleeping in it, slipping round little boulders and -clattering over stones, in a tremendous hurry to escape from these sweet -places to the noisome city, where it will lose itself in the sewer water -before it finds its way to the sea. - -There is no such order in an Irish as in an English landscape: none of -the rich, ordered garden air which in England so delights Americans and -colonials. The Irish landscape is always somewhat forlorn, wild and -soft, with an impalpable melancholy upon it--this even in the fat -pasture-lands of Dublin County. How much more so when the bogs spread -their beautiful brown desolation over miles of country, or in the wild -places where man asks for bread and Nature gives him a stone! At its -most prosperous the country is always a little wild, a little mournful, -a barefooted colleen with cloudy hair and shy eyes sometimes tearful, -and no conventional beauty--only something that takes the heart by storm -and holds it fast. - -Irish skies weep a deal. That accounts, of course, for the great -vegetation, the intense greenness. If I did not know the Irish green I -should be unable to realize the mantle of grass-green silk which so -often the old ballad-makers gave their knights and ladies. Knowing the -Irish grass, I see an intenser green than if I did not know it. Where -there are not rocks and stones and mountains, where there is cultivation -in Ireland, there is leafage and grass of great luxuriousness. Of a wet -summer in Ireland you could scarcely walk through the grass; it might -meet above a child's head. Contrariwise, the flora of Ireland, as I know -it, is much less various and luxuriant than that of England. In a -childhood and youth spent in the Irish country--it was round about -Dublin--I recall only the simpler and commoner wild-flowers. On a chalk -cliff at Dover, when May spread a carpet of flowers, I have seen a -greater variety of wild-flowers than I knew in a lifetime in -Ireland--most of them unknown to me by name. - -[Illustration: BLARNEY CASTLE.] - -Nor do I think the birds are so many as in England, perhaps because so -much of Ireland is stripped of its woods; perhaps because Ireland has -been slower to protect the birds than England; perhaps, also, because of -the scantier population, which leaves the birds to suffer hunger in the -winter. There are no nightingales in Ireland, but I do not think we have -missed them, having the thrush and the blackbird, which seem to me to -sing with a richer sweetness in Ireland than in England; but that may be -because the Irish-born person is prone to exaggerate the sweetness he -has lost. But the most characteristic note of the Irish summer is the -corn-crake's. Somehow the Irish corn-crake has a bigger note and is much -more in evidence than his English brother. All the nights of the early -summer in Ireland he saws away with his rasping note, till the hay is -cut, when he disappears. I suppose one hears him as much in the -day-time, but one does not notice him. He is the harsh Irish -nightingale. Poor fellow! he is often immolated before the -mowing-machine; and you shall see him flying with his long-legged wife -and children--or rather scurrying--to the nearest hedgerow, where there -is always a plentiful supply of grass to cover him till he can make up -his mind to go elsewhere. It is a saying in Ireland that you never see -a corn-crake after the meadows are cut. A learned doctor has assured me -that they migrate to Egypt for the good of their voices. - -For the rest, in the Irish country there are villages of an incredible -poverty. The Irish village mars a landscape, whereas so often an English -one enhances its beauty. There are farmhouses and isolated cottages. The -farmhouses are seldom even pretty. Irish house architecture is terribly -ugly, as a rule, except for the few eighteenth-century houses which -derive from the English. The Irish farmhouse is generally a two-story -building, slated and whitewashed. It is too narrow for its height, -although the height may be no great thing. A mean hall-door in the -middle, with a mean window to either side, three mean windows -above--that is the Irish farmer's idea of house-building. I remember an -Irishman of genius objecting to Morland that his cottages were -impossible; there was never the like out of Arcadia. As a matter of -fact, the cottages were such as are the commonplaces of English -villages. But no good Irishman will concede to England a beauty, natural -or otherwise, which Ireland does not possess. The country shows many -ruins--ruined houses, the houses of the Irish gentry; ruined mills; -ruined churches and castles; and behind grey stone walls, unthought of, -uncared for, old disused graveyards filled with prairie grass to the -height of the crumbling walls. - -When the Irish go away they are always lonely for the mountains. No -other mountains are so soft-bosomed and so mild. They have wisps of -cloud lying along the side of them and the blue peak showing above. I -have seen a rainbow, one end of the arch planted in the sea, the other -somewhere behind the mountains, "over the hills and far away." Seeing -that incomparable sight, I understood why the Irish peasant imagines -fairy treasures hidden at the foot of the rainbow. I, too, have been in -Arcadia. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE IRISH PEOPLE - - -I must warn you, before proceeding to write about the Irish people, that -I have tried to explain them, according to my capacity, a thousand times -to my English friends and neighbours, and have been pulled up short as -many times by the reflection that all I have been saying was -contradicted by some other aspect of my country-people. For we are an -eternally contradictory people, and none of us can prognosticate -exactly what we shall feel, what do, under given circumstances; whereas -the Englishman is simple. He has no mysteries. Once you know him, you -can pretty well tell what he will say, what feel, and do under given -circumstances. You have a formula for him: you have no formula for the -Irish. The Englishman is simple, the Irish complex. The Anglo-Irish, who -stand to most English people for the Irish, have had grafted on to them -the complexity of the Irish without their pliability. It makes, perhaps, -the most puzzling of all mixtures, and it may be the chief difficulty in -a proper estimate of the Irish character. - -They will tell you in Ireland that you have to go some forty or fifty -miles from Dublin before you get into Irish Ireland. There are a good -many Irish in Anglo-Ireland, usually in the humbler walks of life, -whence you shall find in Dublin servants, car-drivers, policemen, -newspaper-boys, and so on, the raciness, the vivacity, the charm, which -in Irish Ireland is a perpetual delight. Dublin drawing-rooms are not -vivacious, nor are the manners gracious, although the Four Courts still -produce a galaxy of wit, and Dublin citizens buttonhole each other with -good stories all along the streets, roaring with laughter in a way that -would be regarded as Bedlam in Fleet Street. - -Get into Irish Ireland and the manners have a graciousness which is like -a blessing. I asked the way in Ballyshannon town once. The woman who -directed me came out into the street and a little way with me, and when -she left me called to me sweetly, "Come back soon to Donegal!" which -left a sense of blessing with me all that day. There was a certain -curly-haired "Wullie," who drove the long car from Donegal to Killybegs. -I can see "Wullie" yet helping the women on and off the car with their -myriad packages, can see the delightful grief with which he parted from -us, his shining face of welcome when he met us again a fortnight later. -To set against "Wullie" were the car-drivers, who certainly are -unpleasant if the "whip-money" does not come up to their expectations. -We say of such that they are "spoilt by the tourists," yet I remember -some who were not spoilt by the tourists, although they were perpetually -in touch with them--boatmen and pony-boys at Killarney; and a certain -delightful guide, whose winning gaiety was not at all merely -professional. - -Thinking over my country-people, I say, "They are so-and-so," and then I -have a misgiving, and I say, "But, after all, they are not so-and-so." - -They are the most generous people in the world. They enjoy to the -fullest the delight of giving; and what a good delight that is! I pity -the ungiving people. You will receive more gifts in Ireland in a -twelvemonth than in a lifetime out of it. The first instinct of Irish -liking or loving is to give you something. The giving instinct runs -through all classes. If you sit down in a cabin and see an old piece of -lustre-ware or something else of the sort, do not admire it unless you -mean to accept it; for it will be offered to you, not in the Spanish way -which does not expect acceptance, but in the Irish way which does. I -have many little bits of china given so, usually the one thing of any -consideration or value the donor possessed. I once sought to buy an old -china dish, much flawed and cracked by hot ovens, in a Dublin hotel, as -much to save it from following its fellows to destruction as for any -other reason. The owner would not sell the dish, but he offered it for -my acceptance in such a way that I could not refuse. When I go back to -my old home, the cottagers bring a few new-laid eggs or a griddle-cake -for my acceptance. I have a friend in an Irish village whose income from -an official source is 10 a year. She has a cottage, a few hens, and -enough grass for a cow when she can get one. Her gifts come at -Christmas, at Easter, on St. Patrick's Day, and on some special, private -feasts of my own--eggs, sweets, flowers, a bit of lace, or a fine -embroidered handkerchief, and, in times of illness, a pair of chickens. -That is royal giving out of so little; and I assure you that it blesses -the giver as well as the recipient. - -On the other hand, the farmers grow thriftier and thriftier. Sir Horace -Plunkett and men like him, truly patriotic Irishmen, are showing them -the way. Successive Land Acts lift them more and more into a position of -security from one of precariousness. They have more money now to put in -the savings-banks. Their prosperity does not mean a higher standard of -living, although that is badly needed. It means more money in the -banks--that is all. - -The Irish are very like the French. If the day should come when they -should learn, like the French, to be thrifty and usurious, I hope I -shall not be there to see it. Better--a thousand times better--that they -should remain royal wastrels to the end. - -As yet we need not fear it. Still, if you ask a drink of water at a -mountain cabin in the poorest parts of Ireland, you are given milk; and -_do not offer to pay for it_, lest you sink to the lowest place in the -estimation of these splendid givers. - -The hospitality is truly splendid. There is a saying in Ireland that -they always put an extra bit in the pot for "the man coming over the -hill." It is an unheard-of thing that you should call at an Irish house -and not be asked if "you've a mouth on you." If your visit be within -anything like measurable distance of meal-time you will be obliged to -stay for the meal. - -In England, when people are poor, or comparatively so, or feel the need -of retrenchment, they "do not entertain." It is almost the first form of -retrenchment which suggests itself to the Englishman; whereas to curtail -his hospitalities would be the last form of retrenchment to an Irishman, -and you will be entertained generously and lavishly by people you know -to be poor. The Englishman's different way of looking at the matter is -no doubt partly due to the fact that he is a much more domestic person -than the Irishman, and depends mainly on his family life for his -happiness and pleasure. Now, the French do not give hospitality at all -outside the large family circle, so that in that regard at least the -Irish will have a long way to travel before they touch with the French. - -[Illustration: OFF TO AMERICA.] - -I have said that the Irish are not domestic. They are gregarious, but -not domestic. The Irishman depends a deal on the neighbours; he has no -such way of enclosing himself within a little fortified place of home -against all the ills of the world as has the Englishman. Irish mothers, -like Irish nurses, are often tenderly, exquisitely soft and warm; but -the young ones will fly out of the nest for all that. Perhaps the art of -making the home pleasant is not an Irish art. Perhaps it is the -gregariousness, general and not particular--at least, general in the -sense of embracing the parish and not the family. To the young Irish and -a good many of their elders the home is dull. They go off to America, -leaving the old people to loneliness, because there is no amusement. -They do not make their own interests, as the slower, less vivacious -nations do. The rainy Irish climate seems made for a people who would -find their pleasures indoors. But the Irish will be out and about, -telling good stories and hearing them. They are an artistic people, with -great traditions; yet books or music or conversation will not keep them -at home. If they cannot have the neighbours in, they will go out to the -neighbours. - -They are very religious, and accept the invisible world with a -thoroughness and simplicity of belief which they would say themselves is -their most precious inheritance. The Celt is no materialist. He does not -love success or riches; most of those whom he holds in esteem have been -neither successful nor rich. Money is not the passport to his -affections. He ought never to go away, and, alas! he goes away in -thousands! Contact with the selfish, money-getting materialism has power -to destroy the spiritual qualities of the Celt, once he is outside -Ireland. When he comes back--a prosperous Irish-American--he is no -longer the Celt we loved. And he does come back: that is one of his -contradictions. The home he has left behind because of its dulness, the -arid patch of mountain-land, the graves of his people, call him back -again at the moment when one would have said every bond with them was -loosened. - -He is full of sentiment, yet he makes mercenary marriages. The Irish -match-making customs are well known. In the South and West of Ireland -the prospective bride is bargained over with no more sentiment than if -she were a heifer. She may be "turned down" for an iron pot or a -feather-bed which her mother will not give up to supplement the dowry. -Satin cheeks and speedwell eyes and a head of silk like the raven's -plume will not count against a bullock extra with a yellow spinster of -greater fortune, or is not supposed to count; for sometimes Cupid steps -in, although the match-making customs are usually accepted as -unquestioningly as a similar institution is by the French. And even in -such unpromising soil flowers of love and tenderness will spring up. -Under my hand I have a letter from an Irish peasant which I think -affords a beautiful refutation of the idea that sentiment and -match-making cannot go together. Here is a passage from it: - -"For the last few weeks I was anxiously engaged at match-making, as -matters were going from bad to worse; having no housekeeper, household -jobs and cares prevented me from attending to outside work. Well, at -last my match is made. The marriage is to take place next Thursday. The -'young girl' is twenty-two years, and I thank God that I am perfectly -satisfied with my life-companion-to-be. There were many other matches -introduced to me--far more satisfactory from the financial point of -view, some having 20, some 30, and one 40 more fortune than my -intended wife has, with whom I am getting but 90, while I must 'by -will' give 120 to my brother, leaving a deficit of 30; but, somehow, I -could not satisfy my mind with the other 'good girls' if they had over -200--nay, at all. And the poet's words were true when he said something -like 'pity is akin to love'; pity I felt first for my intended wife, -with her simple, yet wise, unaffected ways, not used to world's ways and -wiles, 'an unspoiled child of Nature,' never flirted, never went to -dances, with the bloom of her maidenhood fresh and pure, and fair and -bright. When but a last 5 was between myself and her people _re_ -fortune, her very words to me were: 'Wisha, God help me! if I'm worth -anything, I ought to be worth that 5.' That expression of hers stung me -to the quick, so openly, frankly, and innocently uttered, and 'I'm -getting other accounts, but would not marry anyone but you.' Well, the -end was in that one night, sitting beside her in her father's house, the -feeling of pity changed to a warmer feeling, thank God; for if it -didn't, I would rather live and die single than marry against my will. -''Tisn't riches makes happiness.' I've read somewhere that when want -comes in at the door, love flies out of the window; but I don't believe -it--I don't believe it. And my brother is kind; he will be giving me -time to pay the balance, 30, by degrees." - -The Irish are notoriously brave, yet they have a fear of public opinion -unknown to an Englishman. Underneath their charmingly gay and open -manner there is a self-consciousness, a self-mistrust. For all their -keen sense of humour, they cannot bear laughter directed at themselves. -They dread to be made absurd more than anything else in this world. -They are responsive and sympathetic, yet too witty not to be somewhat -malicious; and they are warm and generous, yet not always so reliably -kind as a duller, slower people. They are irritable, so they are less -tolerant of children and animals, although they make excellent nurses, -as I have said. They have no tolerance at all for slowness and -stupidity, very little for ugliness or want of charm. They adore beauty, -though it doesn't count for much in their most intimate relations; and -it is not, therefore, the paradise of plain women. - -I have not touched on a hundredth part of their contradictoriness, which -makes the Irish so eternally unexpected and interesting. They can be, as -they say themselves, "contrairy" when they choose--and they often -choose. Yet, when all is said and done, they are the pleasantest people -in the world. Nor is their pleasantness insincere. They are pleasant -because they feel pleasant; and an Irish man or woman will pay you an -amazing, fresh, audacious compliment which an Englishman might feel, but -would rather die than say. - -Did I say that the Celt was gay and melancholy? He is exquisitely gay -and most profoundly melancholy. He is in touch with the other world, and -yet desperately afraid of it, or of the passage to it, being a creature -of fine nerves and apprehension; whence he will joke about death to -cover up his real repugnance, and yet hold the key to heaven as securely -as though it were the other side of the wall, with a lonesome passage to -be traversed. It is the lonesomeness of death which makes it terrible to -the gregarious Irishman, although he knows that the other side of the -wall the kinsmen and friends and neighbours await him, friendly and -loving as of old. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -SOUTH OF DUBLIN - - -If you go down from Dublin by the wonderful coast-line or through the -beautiful country inland which runs by the base of the mountains, you -will come upon beautiful scenery, and find a population not at all -characteristically Irish. The beauty of Wicklow, its wonderful woods, -its deep glens, its placid waters, its glorious mountains, is only less -than the beauty of Killarney, which is an earthly paradise. But in -Wicklow, in Wexford, in Waterford, the people's blood is mixed. -Sometimes it is Celt upon Celt, the Welsh Celt upon the Irish. There are -charming people in Wicklow and Wexford and Waterford, but to those -counties belongs also what I call the cynical Irishman--the Irishman -without charm of manner, the "independent" Irishman, who will not take -off his hat to rank or age or sex; yet he is Irish enough in the core of -him. And Wicklow and Wexford, with Kildare and part of Meath, were the -scenes of the Rebellion in 1798. Perhaps the memory of those days helps -to make the Irishman of the south-east corner of Ireland what he is, and -that is often something very unlike the gracious Irishman of the South -and West. He has his resentments. I have heard an Irishman say: "A -Wexford man will never look at a Tipperary man, because Tipperary didn't -rise in the Rebellion." The Rebellion, which was hatched in the North by -Ulster Presbyterians, broke out, after all, in Wexford, and on a -religious, and a Catholic, cause of quarrel. There could have been -nothing farther from the thoughts of the leaders of the united Irishmen -than to make a religious war, but that was what the Rebellion of 1798 -turned out to be--a religious war; a war between Catholic and -Protestant, precipitated not by English intriguers, say those who know -well, but by outrageous insults to the Catholic altars, led in many -cases by priests on the rebel side, foredoomed to failure in spite of -the desperate courage of the peasantry who for a time swept all before -them. One always thinks of Wexford and the Rebellion simultaneously. It -was a time of cynical contrasts. Think of the poor peasants, maddened by -outrages to their altars, led by their priests, carrying on the -Rebellion planned by Protestants of the North--by leaders deeply imbued -with the French revolutionary spirit, which was certainly not Christian! -Think of the Western peasants, when Humbert and his men landed at -Killala, hailing those good comrades of the Revolution as -fellow-Catholics, coming to meet them decked out in religious emblems! -One of the strangest and most cynical of these contrasts was the fact -that while the peasant army fought desperately at New Ross, where they -all but carried the day, on the other side of the Barrow River men were -ploughing peacefully in their fields, because it was Wexford that was up -and not their county. I suppose it is the clan system which -differentiates Irishmen by their counties and their towns. Dublin is -heterogeneous, perhaps. It has, at all events, few distinguishing -characteristics, whereas Cork and Waterford men are as widely apart -almost as though they were of different nationalities; and both are -agreed in despising Dublin, although Dublin has made history in the last -hundred years--national history--more than either. - -[Illustration: A WICKLOW GLEN.] - -The men who were the first begetters of the Rebellion, and the men who -saved Ireland for the English Crown, were alike men of Anglo-Irish -blood. The Rebellion was put down by the Irish yeomanry, as English -statesmen had to acknowledge, however little they liked the methods of -their allies. The yeomanry did not make war with rose-water, any more -than they precipitated the Rebellion by gentle methods. It is a bloody -and brutal chapter of Irish history, and the memories of it accounted -for the religious animosities which I remember in my youth, which are -fading out as the memories of the Rebellion are fading. The year 1798 -has ceased to be a landmark in Irish life. When I was a child, there yet -lived people who could tell at first hand or second hand of the terrible -happenings of those days. People used to say, fixing an age: "He was -born the year of the Rebellion." Now all that has passed away. Even in -those times it was becoming more customary to date events by the year of -the Big Wind, 1839. Now, with the establishment of parish -registers--which did not come in in Ireland till the sixties--and the -spread of newspapers and cheap knowledge generally, such landmarks are -no longer required; and the Big Wind of 1903 has wiped out the memory of -its predecessor. - -In the mountains of Wicklow the insurgents of those days found their -refuges and their fastnesses and their graves. I remember having seen -somewhere near Roundwood, in the Wicklow Mountains, in the midst of a -ploughed field a long strip of greenest grass covering the grave of many -rebels. The plough had gone round it ever since then, but not a sod of -it had been turned up; it had remained inviolate. - -A great deal of Irish history gathers round the Rebellion--_the_ -Rebellion, the Irish yet call it, as though there had never been any -other. The men who made it were literary men, in a more vital sense than -the men of '48, who were also literary. Two books of that day stand out -pre-eminently--Lord Edward Fitzgerald's "Life and Letters," edited by -Thomas Moore, and the Journal of Theobald Wolfe Tone. Lord Edward had an -exquisite style. His letters are the frank revelation of a beautiful and -gallant and innocent mind and heart. Without deliberation, without -knowledge, his family letters achieved the highest art. They are -immortal, imperishable things. - -Then Tone's Journal is as remarkable a human document. Tone swaggers -through these pages better than any hero of romance. Life, after all, -is the greatest artist, and one does not say, "Here is a true Dumas -hero! Here is a true Stevenson hero!" For Life is better than her -children. - -Nearly all the United Irish leaders left memoirs or journals behind -them. There was, perhaps, something of the self-consciousness of the -French Revolution in this keeping a journal in the face of battle. -Anyhow, we are grateful to Holt, to Teeling, to Cloney, for keeping -alive for us those days and those men. - -In Lady Sarah Napier's letters you also get most vivid glimpses of the -Rebellion--as, indeed, you do in the letters of the whole Leinster -family. Mary Ledbetter, that gentle Quakeress, of Ballitore, has told -her experiences of the Rebellion in Kildare; there is Bishop Stock's -Narrative of the French landing at Killala and those days in which he -entertained willy-nilly the French leaders and found them the most -considerate of guests. In fact, there is a whole library of Rebellion -literature. - -I ask pardon for treating Wicklow and Wexford as though they were the -theatre of '98, and nothing more; but, indeed, in the story of Wexford -the Rebellion stands up like White Mountain and Mount Leinster, and one -finds little else to say. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE NORTH - - -Between Dublin and Newry there is not much to see or to remember except -that Cromwell sacked Drogheda with a thoroughness, and that at Dundalk -Edward Bruce, the brother of Robert, was crowned King of Ireland. The -Mourne Mountains and Carlingford Lough bring us back to characteristic -Ireland. Beyond them one enters the manufacturing districts--that -north-east corner of Ireland which no Celt looks upon as Ireland at all. -In speech, in character, in looks, the people become Scotch and not -Irish. One has crossed the border and Celtic Ireland is left behind. - -In the north-east corner of Ulster they are all busy money-making and -money-getting. The North of Ireland has admirable qualities--thrift, -energy, industry, ambition, capacity. In other parts of Ireland you find -these qualities here and there; they are mainly, but not altogether, the -qualities of the Anglo-Irish--that is, in so far as they are a business -asset. The Celt has no real capacity for money-making, though at the -wrong end of the virtue of thrift--that dreariest of the virtues--he may -accumulate it. He will put an enormous deal of energy into something -that does not pay him in hard cash. Honorary positions are greedily -sought after by the Irish everywhere. They will run any number of -societies for nothing, will do the business of Leagues, of the Poor Law, -of the County Councils. The energy shown by the Celt in doing the public -business would enrich him if applied to his own. He has a large capacity -for public business, and an extraordinary readiness to do it, which is, -I suppose, the reason why he does the public business of America, while -non-Irish Americans sit by and grumble at his way of doing it. - -In Ireland and in America he does hard manual labour, but somehow the -genius of finance is not his. His hard work is on the land in one form -or another. Now and again he may build up quite a considerable fortune -in petty shop-keeping--the big traders are nearly all Anglo-Irish--but -when he does, his sons become professional men and the business ceases -to be. One can hardly imagine in Celtic Ireland what occurs every day in -English business life, where the son of a successful business man may be -a public-school man, a University man, and have had all the advantages -of wealth, and yet succeed his father in the business. And his son -succeeds him, and so on. This, in Celtic Ireland, would, I fear, be -taken as indicative of a pettifogging spirit. The Anglo-Irishman, on the -contrary, succeeds to the business his father has made, even though he -be a University man; and the Grafton Street shops are often run by men -who are graduates and honourmen of the University, and yet do not -disdain to be seen in their shops. - -There is nothing Irish about North-East Ulster except the country -itself, which does not materially alter its character, because it is -studded with factories. From the streets of Belfast you see the Cave -Hill, as from easy-going Dublin you see the Dublin Mountains. Perhaps -there is something of exuberance caught from the Celt in the -paraphernalia and ceremonial of the Orange Society. Who can say how much -of poetry it may not mean, that crowded hour of glorious life which -comes about mid-July, when men who have worked side by side in amity all -the rest of the year suddenly become bitter enemies, when the wearing of -an Orange sash and the sight of an Orange lily stir a fever in the -blood? - -Apart from such occasions, they are given in Belfast to minding their -own business, and minding it very well. The Belfast man is very shrewd, -but he has a great simplicity withal. He has none of the uppish notions -of the Celt, and though he makes money he does not make it to display -it. He is blunt and brusque in his speech and manner, and so not unlike -his Lancashire brother. He lives simply. In public matters he has the -priceless advantage, in Ireland, of knowing what he wants; and he -usually gets it, unless his demands be too outrageous. He is a hard man -of business, but in his human relationships he is kind and sincere. I -have known exiles of Dublin who went to Belfast in tears, and for the -first months or years of their residence were always sighing after -Dublin. When, however, they came to know the man of the North--he takes -a good deal of knowing--nothing would induce them to return to Dublin. - -Like his Scottish progenitors, he stands by the Bible. There is as much -Bible-reading in the fine red-brick mansions of Belfast as there is in -Scotland. He does not produce literature. The more artistic parts of -Ireland look down on him as one to whom "boetry and bainting" are as -unacceptable as they were to the Second George. But he encourages solid -learning, and he endows seats of learning as generously as does the -American millionaire, who in this respect offers an example to his -English brother. The Belfast man has the Scottish love of education. He -has many of the homespun Scottish virtues, and much less than the -Scottish love of money. - -At the very gates of Belfast you find the Irish country. The Glens of -Antrim are as Irish as Limerick or Clare. They are very beautiful, and -not much exploited. There is also the Giant's Causeway to see. The -legend of its construction is that Finn, the Irish giant, invited a -Scotch giant over to fight him, and generously provided the Causeway for -him to cross by; but he played a nasty trick on him, for he pretended to -the Scottish giant when he came that he was his own little boy. "If you -are the little son, what must your father be?" the Scottish giant is -reported to have said before taking to his heels. - -I do not believe the story. I believe that the Scottish giant came and -stayed. You see his children all over North-East Ulster. - -There are women-poets whom one associates with the North--Moira O'Neill -of the Glens, and Alice Milligan, a daughter of Belfast. They are both - - "Kindly Irish of the Irish - Neither Saxon nor Italian," - -nor Scottish. - -[Illustration: THE RIVER LEE.] - - - - -Cork and Thereabouts - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -CORK AND THEREABOUTS - - -There is something of rich and racy association about the very name of -Cork--something that suggests joviality, wit, a warm southern -temperament. Corkmen only out of all Ireland hold together. The rest of -Ireland may be fissiparous, disunited. Corkmen cleave closer than -Scotsmen to one another, and to be a Corkman is to another Corkman a -cloak that covers a multitude of sins. A Corkman in Dublin will have -friends in all sorts of unlikely places. What matter though a man be in -a humble rank of life--a cabman, a policeman, a postman, even a -scavenger! So he be a Corkman, he has an appeal to the heart of his -brother Corkman. It is a Freemasonry. There is nothing else like it in -Ireland, nor anywhere else, so far as I know; for the Scotsman coming -into England may draw other Scotsmen to follow him, but in the Scotch -sticking together there is less real affection than there is in the case -of the Corkman. To be able to exchange memories of the Mardyke, of the -River Lee, of Shandon and Sunday's Well, is to make Corkmen brothers -all the world over. Cork looks on itself as the real capital of Ireland, -and has always its eye on a day when Dublin will be dispossessed. - -It has a most excellent situation on the River Lee, and is surrounded by -all manner of natural beauties. There is plenty of business stirring, -and there is a good deal of opulence in Cork, where, Corkmen being men -of taste, they display it in their houses, their way of living and on -the persons of their beautiful women, with the irresistible Cork brogue -to crown all their other charms. Cork is nothing if not artistic. She -has produced artists of all descriptions--poets, painters, great -newspaper men (was not Delane of the _Times_ a Corkman?), musicians, -sculptors, orators, preachers. The words roll off the Cork tongue sweet -as honey. There is something extraordinarily rich, gay and alluring -about Cork and Cork people. They were always audacious. They set up -Perkin Warbeck as a Pretender to the English Crown, clad him in silks -and velvets, and demanded his acknowledgment at the hands of the Lord -Deputy. I do not know that as a city Cork took a great part in any of -the many Irish rebellions. It would make a city of diplomatists because -of its honeyed tongue. Queen Elizabeth, they say, was the first one to -talk of Blarney, which is a Cork commodity. There was a certain -McCarthy, Lord of Blarney, who would not come in and submit to the -Queen's forces, though week by week he promised to come and kept the -Queen's anger off by cozening words. "It is all Blarney," the Queen came -to say of fair words that meant nothing; but that is a derivation I -somewhat suspect. I do not know what Cork was doing in the Desmond -Rebellion, of the results of which Spenser has left us so harrowing a -description. She was perhaps enjoying herself after the fashion of that -day. Spenser married a Cork-woman, and has enshrined her in the -"Epithalamion," the most beautiful love-poem in the English language. -Cork has its links with the Golden Age of England, for Raleigh was at -Youghal, and Spenser at Kilcolman close by; and in Raleigh's house at -Youghal they show you the oriel in which Spenser sat and read the -"Farie Queene" to his host, the Shepherd of the Ocean. Youghal and all -that part of the country round about Cork is steeped in traditions and -memories. St. Mary's Collegiate Church at Youghal might be in an English -town, and there are malls and promenades in those parts, with high, -crumbling houses, which suggest the English civilization of the Middle -Ages and not the Irish civilization before the Norman Conquest. The -Normans were great church-builders, but of their churches, as in the -case of the old Abbey of St. Francis at Youghal, there remain now only -ruins--a naked gable standing up amid a wilderness of graves, buried in -coarse grasses, which, when I was there, had a greater decency towards -the dead than had the living. For it is strange that the Irish, who love -the dead, have little piety towards their graves. - -From Youghal Sir Walter Raleigh sailed away to Virginia on his last -disastrous voyage. Spenser had gone back to London earlier than that, -heart-broken by the loss of his little son, who was burnt to death in a -fire at Kilcolman Castle. Raleigh and Spenser had received grants of the -lands of the attainted Desmonds. Very little profit either had of them, -and Raleigh's lands passed to the Earl of Cork, commonly called "the -Great," whose flaring chapel destroys the quiet of St. Mary's dim aisles -and chancel. Never was there so worldly a monument as this of Robert -Boyle, his mother, his two wives, and his nine children, all in -hideously painted and decorated Italian marble. The fierce eyes of the -great Earl are something to remember with dismay. - -I recall the evidence the great Earl adduced to prove that Sir Walter -did really hand him over his Irish estates on the eve of that journey -to Virginia--for a small consideration of money and plenishing for the -expedition. "If you do not take the lands, some Scot will have them," -said, or is reported to have said, Sir Walter, which reminds us that -Jamie had succeeded Elizabeth, and was already transplanting his -Scots--Jamie, who was to keep so brilliant a bird as Sir Walter in so -squalid a cage as a prison till he made up his mind to send him to the -block. Youghal is haunted by Sir Walter and Spenser. My memories of the -place in a windy autumn are brightened by sudden gleams, as of splendid -attire and golden olive faces with the Elizabethan ruff and the -Elizabethan pointed beard. - -The Blackwater, which runs through Youghal, dropping into the sea at -that point, had at Rhincrew Point its House of Knights Templars. From -Youghal they also sailed away in search of El Dorado, but a heavenly -one. May they have found it! - -And also there is Templemichael, of the Earls of Desmond, the southern -branch of the Fitzgeralds, which Cromwell battered down for "dire -insolence." There is a story of a Desmond lord who was buried across the -water at Ardmore, the holy place of St. Declan, where there is a -pilgrimage and a patronage to this day. But holy as Ardmore was and is, -Earl Gerald could not sleep there. He wanted to be back at -Templemichael, where his young wife lay in her lonely grave. So that -night after night there came a terrible cry, "Garault Arointha! Garault -Arointha!"--that is to say: "Give Gerald a ferry!" So at last some of -his faithful followers rowed over by night, took up the body of Earl -Gerald, and carried it back to Templemichael and to the dead Countess's -side. And after that Earl Gerald slept in peace. - -My memory of Youghal in that far-away windy autumn is compounded of -three or four things. There was purple wistaria hanging in great masses -over the walls of the college which was the foundation of one of the -Desmonds. There was provision there for so many singing men--twenty, was -it?--who were to sing in St. Mary's choir. The great Earl of Cork had a -great maw, one that never suffered from indigestion. The revenues of St. -Mary's College went the same way as Sir Walter's slice of the Desmond -lands. Then, again, in a little shop-window of the town, there was a -glorious show of fruit--great scarlet-skinned tomatoes, gorgeous plums -and pears and apples, which reminded one that Raleigh had planted -orchards at Affane, on the Blackwater. As a rule, fruit is sadly to seek -in a small Irish town, although Cork produces some of the finest fruit -I have ever seen. Then, again, there was a room in Raleigh's house, -Myrtle Grove, unlit save for the flicker of firelight, the darkness all -about us, and an old voice bidding us to notice the earthy smell, which -was supposed to enter the room from a subterranean passage that led to -St. Mary's. - -Again, I have another widely different memory. It is of a fine, tall, -beautifully-complexioned girl standing behind the counter of a draper's -shop, her shining red-golden head showing against a background of little -plaid shawls and kerchiefs, while she lamented in her wailing southern -brogue the fact that no one could hope to get married in Youghal, unless -one had 300 to buy an old "widda-man"; and they were all the men that -were going. - -I like to get back from Youghal and its ghosts, and Rosanna, who never -thought of rebelling against the marriage customs of her forbears, to -cheerful Cork of the living and not the dead, with her tramcars, her -jingles--the curious covered car which takes the place of the outside -car in other Irish towns--her citizens laughing and button-holing each -other with a greater gaiety than the Dubliners; her excellent shops, her -beautiful girls promenading Patrick Street, her club-houses, her -churches, her Queen's College, and all the rest of it, down to her -river with its busy steamers. Cork's citizens live outside her gates, at -Monkstown, at Blackrock, at Glenbrook; and the busy steamers carry them -to and fro by the loveliest of waterways. "Are the steamers punctual?" I -asked a Cork friend. "Is it punctual?" repeated he. "They're the most -punctual things in Ireland, for they always get in before their time." - -Father Mathew is one of Cork's memories; Father Prout is another; Dr. -Maginn is another. But the list of Cork's worthies is a long one, and I -shall not enter upon it here. - -[Illustration: RALEIGH'S HOUSE, MYRTLE GROVE.] - -Cork has the most enervating climate for one who comes to it from more -northern latitudes. It is always soft and warm, and often wet. "Good -heavens!" said John Mitchel, when he came back from twenty years or so -of Australia, gliding in by Spike Island in that same silver mist of -rain in which he had gone out, "isn't that shower over yet?" The flowers -are wonderful in Cork, as well as the fruit. I have seen the suburban -gardens of Corkmen a luxuriance of vivid, closely packed, overflowing -blossom. Myrtles and fuchsias grow in the open air. There are hedges of -fuchsias at Killarney. There are hydrangeas also; but the same is true -of Dublin and its precincts. No one coming in from outside has energy to -do anything in Cork. But the Corkman lacks nothing of energy, nothing -of the joy of life. He is a keen business man, and there is plenty of -industrial enterprise. He is interested in the affairs of the world at -large and of Cork in particular. He has his enthusiasms. He is a -tremendous politician, and does not mind being on the losing side so -long as it is the right one. He is a sportsman and a bit of a gambler; -he makes love and is a good friend. The place is full of wit and gaiety -and humour. His standard of living when he has money, or ought to have -it, is an unusually high one for Ireland. Some of those successful -merchants live, I am told, like merchant princes. He is lavish and -generous, and fond of display--altogether a rich, abundant, -highly-coloured character. He lives in an atmosphere of incessant wit -and humour. Hardly a man in Cork but has his nickname. "There goes Billy -Boulevard," you hear, and you are told that the gentleman so designated -desired to embellish Patrick Street with trees. But it was in Dublin -that they called one who had made his money in pneumatic tyres, and was -exalted above his humbler neighbours, "Lord Tyre and Side-on." - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -GALWAY - - -Galway is so synonymous with racy Irish life that a peep at Ireland must -be incomplete unless it includes a peep at Galway. It is full of the -strangest monuments of the past. It was once a town of the Irishry, in -the O'Flaherty country. But with the Norman Conquest there came in that -group of Anglo-Norman families known as the Tribes, who in course of -time went the way of all their compeers, becoming more Irish than the -Irish. "Lord!" said Edmund Spenser, "how quickly doth that country alter -men's natures!" The Tribes were, and are--for happily there are still -the Tribes of Galway--thirteen, viz.: Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, -D'Arcy, Font, French, Joyce, Kirwan, Lynch, Martin, Morris, and -Skerrett. These Tribes became responsible in time for so much of the -wild and picturesque life of the Irish gentry of the eighteenth -century--the duelling, the drinking, the racing, the gambling, the -general devil-may-care life--that Galway looms more largely, perhaps, -than any town in the social history of Ireland. Galway drew up a code -for duellists known as the Galway Code; and in the irresponsible life of -the eighteenth century, such as you find in Miss Edgeworth's "Castle -Rackrent" and in Lever's novels, the life which the Encumbered Estates -Act put a period to, the names of the Tribes figure oftener than more -Celtic names. For the picturesque wildness of Irish life was the -wildness of the settlers rather than the wildness of the native Irish. - -However, in the great days of Galway's trade with Spain and other -continental ports, traces of which are scattered all over the old ruined -city, which is as much Spanish as it is Irish, the Tribes were just -merchant princes, not anticipating the time when, _more Hibernico_, they -should fling trade to the winds and become the maddest crew of -dare-devils known in the social life of any country. And here I find, in -the record of the duelling and drinking days, traces and indications of -the English descent of the roysterers. For certainly there was a lack of -humour in the actors, though none for the spectator; there was a -solemnity--not always a drunken solemnity--in the way their pranks were -performed that was not Celtic; for the Celt has a terrible sense of the -ridiculous. Doubtless it was from his Anglo-Irish betters that the Celt -derived the habit of "trailing his coat" through a fair when he was -spoiling for a fight, though, to do him justice, he practised it only -when he was drunk. The Anglo-Irish duellists inaugurated the custom. -When on no pretext could they find a friend or neighbour to kill or be -killed by, they went out and "trailed the coat," like the gentleman who -rode on a tailless horse, with his face to the crupper, and, seeing an -unwary stranger smile, immediately challenged him, and rode home in huge -delight to look to his pistols. They were extremely solemn over their -pranks. One wonders how often the Celtic servants had a smile behind -their hand at such strange goings-on of their masters, which would not -have been possible to the self-conscious Celt. - -Over one of the gates of Galway was the pious legend, "From the -ferocious O'Flaherties, good Lord deliver us!" I have heard of other -inscriptions referring to other Irish septs over the remaining gates of -the town, but those I think are apocryphal. The fact remains that the -Tribes, having seized the town of the Irish after their rapacious Norman -manner, were obliged to wall it against the O'Flaherties, and doubtless -often slept ill at night because of the wild Irish battering at their -gates, as did their brothers of the English pale up in Dublin. - -Galway would at that time have been well worth sacking. A traveller of -the early seventeenth century reports: "The merchants of Galway are rich -and great adventurers at sea: their commonalitie is composed of the -descendants of the ancient English families of the towne: and rairlie -admit of any new English among them, and never of any of the Irish; they -keep good hospitalitie and are kind to strangers, and in their manner of -entertainment and in fashioninge and apparellynge themselves and their -wives do most preserve the ancient manners and state of annie towne that -ever I saw." - -They had their enactments against the Irish, including the MacWilliam -Burkes, who had gone over to the Irish, bag and baggage: - -"That none of the towne buy cattle out of the country but only of true -men. - -"That no man of the towne shall sell galley, bote or barque to an -Irishman. - -"That no person shall give or sell to the Irish any munition as -hand-povins, calivres, poulter, leade, nor salt-peter, nor yet large -bowes, cross-bowes, cross-bowe strings, nor yearne to make the same, nor -any kind of weapon on payn to forfayt the same and an hundred -shyllinges. - -"If anie man being an Irishman to brag and boste upon the towne, to -forfayt 12 pence. - -"That no man of this towne shall ostle or receive into their house at -Christmasse or Easter nor no feast elles, anny of the Burkes -MacWilliams, the Kellies, nor no septs elles, without the licence of the -Maior and Council on payn to forfayt 5. That neither O' ne Mac shall -strutt or swagger through the streets of Galway." - -You still find traces of the commerce of the Tribes with Spain, not only -in the old Spanish buildings of the town, but in the black Spanish eyes -and hair of the people. I remember to have been struck in Donegal by a -dignity, a loftiness of bearing, as well as by a height and stateliness -of the peasant people that made one murmur "Spanish" to one's own ear. - -One of the sights of Galway is the ruins of the house from the window of -which James Lynch Fitz Stephen, a Chief Magistrate of Galway in 1493, -hanged his only son for murder with his own hand, lest the townspeople -should rescue him. The house is called The Cross Bones nowadays, and is -situated most appropriately in Dead-Man's Lane. There remains but an old -wall, with a couple of doorways having the pointed Spanish arches and -some ornate window-spaces above. There is a tablet on the wall, bearing -a skull and cross-bones, with the inscription: - - "Remember Deathe, - Vaniti of vanitis, all is but vaniti." - -Some people believe that this Lynch is the "onlie begetter" of Lynch -Law. This, however, I do not believe, and I think it more likely to have -been derived from a Lynch of the mining-camps in Southern California, -who was the first to promulgate and put in practice the wild justice of -execution without judge or jury. Anyhow, I cannot see that the example -of James Lynch FitzStephen was an admirable one, and I do not believe -the legend that he died heart-broken as a result of his own stern sense -of justice. - -The palmy days of the Tribes were over with the Reformation, for they -did not cease to be Catholics, and so were in no great favour with the -predominant partner. Galway also stood for the King against the -Parliament, was besieged and taken by the Parliamentary soldiers under -Ludlow, who stabled his horses, according to report, in St. Nicholas's -Cathedral. After that Galway's great prosperity as a trading centre -passed away, and the Tribes scattered among the ferocious O'Flaherties -and others of their sort and became country gentlemen, with a noble -contempt for trade. The situation of Galway, on its magnificent Bay, -still cries out for commerce. The spectacle of Galway as a port of call -for American steamers has dangled before the eyes of the Galwegians for -a long time without being realized, although they made preparations for -it long ago, by building a hotel that would house a _Mauretania_-load of -travellers. - -Only the other day I listened to a Galway Tribesman conversing with -someone who had lived in Galway, and who asked after the old places and -persons. "What's become of So-and-so?" "He's just the same as ever; not -a bit of change in him. He comes home every night strapped to the -outside car to keep him from falling off." "And what's become of -So-and-so?" "Oh, he's done very well for himself. His father says, -'Mac's all right; he's got the run of a kitchen in Yorkshire,' meaning -that he married an English heiress." - -This conversation made me feel that to some extent Galway stands where -it did. - -[Illustration: GLENCOLUMBKILLE HEAD. _PAGE 70._] - -The Claddagh fishing village by Galway is something not to be missed. It -keeps itself to itself, with a reserve Celtic or Spanish or anything -else you like, but not English. It used to be ruled by its own King, who -was just a fisherman like his subjects, and was not exalted in his -manner of living by his royal state. He was chosen for his governing -powers and his mental and moral qualities, and his subjects were ruled -by him with a despotism that was never anything but fatherly. They -intermarried, too, among themselves--I do not know if this usage -survives--and their ring of betrothal, handed on from one generation to -another, has a design of two hands holding up a heart. At the Claddagh -they still have the Blessing of the Sea, but they will not make a show -of it, and even the Galway people are kept in ignorance of the time when -the ceremony takes place. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -DONEGAL OF THE STRANGERS - - -It once fell to my lot to make a hasty scamper through Donegal from end -to end; that is to say, as far as possible, I made the circuit of the -county, beginning with Ballyshannon, following the coast-line, with -divergences, from Donegal to Gweedore, going round by Bloody Foreland, -by Falcarragh and Dunfanaghy, and ending up by way of Letterkenny at -Ballyshannon again. I took ten or twelve days to do it--perhaps a -fortnight--staying each night at an inn. To Gweedore I devoted the best -portion of a week. Now, in that scamper I had a very characteristic peep -at Ireland. I missed, indeed, the wild gaiety of the South. Donegal -people are somewhat sorrowful. But I found plenty of types and racy life -nevertheless. - -It is a good many years ago now; and travelling in Donegal has been -simplified since then by the light railways with which the names of Mr. -Arthur Balfour and Mr. Gerald Balfour are gratefully associated. When I -was there I drove through the country, only taking the train from -Letterkenny to Ballyshannon on my return journey; and it was an -excellent, though somewhat expensive, way of seeing the country. -However, the hospitality was so wonderful that one only slept and -breakfasted in one's hotel. For the rest, the kind priests were only too -eager to give hospitality to myself and my companion. - -At Ballyshannon we stayed a night in one of those enormous old hotels -with a maze of winding passages, which suggest to one in the dead waste -and middle of the night that in case of a fire one never could get out. -The next day we came upon the first of the priests, who carried us off -to see everything that could be seen of Ballyshannon, including a visit -to Abbey Assaroe, which we knew already in William Allingham's poetry. -To the grief of these kind friends of ours, we insisted on going off the -same afternoon to Donegal town, to which we were driven by "Wullie"--the -first "Wullie"--a red-haired, taciturn youth, who suspected us of -laughing at him and was closer than an oyster. Your English man or woman -is the truly expansive person. When you want to get at anything from an -Irishman you've got to sit down and wait for the charmed moment when his -suspicion of you is put to sleep. Dr. Douglas Hyde got his Religious -Songs and Love Songs of Connacht by sitting over the turf fire in a -cabin, taking a "shaugh" of the pipe and offering a fill of it, passing -round a flask of poteen, perhaps. It might be hours, and it might be -days, and it might be weeks before you broke down the barrier of -reserve, well worth the breaking-down if you have "worlds enough and -time." You can't travel twenty miles in an English third-class carriage -before you have the intimate confidence of your fellow-passengers. You -are told which relative died of cancer, with harrowing details, which is -in a madhouse, and which in gaol; for the plain English people are the -most unreserved in the world, while the Irish are the most reticent. -And if you win a flow of talk from the Irish peasants, be sure they are -talking round what they have to tell by way of leading you away from it; -for an Irishman uses language to conceal his thoughts. - -We hadn't "worlds enough and time" for "Wullie." His lips were -tight-locked from Ballyshannon to Donegal. - -The next day we saw what was to be seen of the Castle, under the -guidance of the parish priest, whom we met walking in the Diamond. We -introduced ourselves to him. He was a delightful, humorous, stately, -kindly old man, and he looked at us when he met us with an eye that -asked: "Who are you and what is your business in Donegal?" It is a way -the priests have in the remote parts of Ireland, where they are -everything to their flocks. Being reassured, he gave his day to our -entertainment, taking us to see some of his parishioners when he had -shown us all the town contained of interest. - -Killybegs I remember as a beautiful bay, big enough to take in the whole -English fleet. The next day we went on to Kilcar, where we found our -third priest, who lived in a delightfully clean little cabin with a clay -floor. His housekeeper was barefooted, but he had dainty table -appointments. I remember that he had very good china, and he explained -that his mother had given it to him. He was the son of rather wealthy -people. We had a meal of fish, with a little fruit to follow; and while -we ate it a messenger was out prospecting for the loan of an outside car -for the priest. Sure enough, by the time we had finished the meal the -car was at the door, and our host carried us off to see the Caves of -Muckross, some six miles away. Incidentally, we saw Bunglass, that -magnificent cliff-face where Slieve League drops into the sea. I -remember a visit we paid to a cottage where a father sat at the loom -weaving, the mother was carding wool, and a black-haired daughter was -sprigging muslin by the little narrow square window. A scarlet geranium -in the window seemed to be in her night-black hair, and her tears flowed -when our little priest spoke to her. He told us that her lover had -married a richer girl and gone to America. I can remember quite well -walking up a mountain road where the friendly little lambs came and -trotted a bit of the way with us, and the voice of the young priest as -he told us of the innocence of the people--"not a sin in it from year's -end to year's end," for they were too poor to drink--and how his -ambition was to get away to the East End of London, where there was -something to do for a born fighter. - -A night at the excellent hotel at Carrick and the next day we were at -Glencolumkille, that wild and lonely glen between the mountains and the -sea, with the majestic Glen Head standing out into the Atlantic. In the -Glen are twelve crosses of stone, where pilgrims make the stations in -honour of St. Columba or Columkille, the Dove of the Churches. Above -Lough Gartan, on Eithne's Bed, he was born, and any who lie there shall -not have the pangs of home-sickness; wherefore many emigrants stretch -themselves upon that rocky couch before they cross "the Green Fields to -America." The Glen is full of the noise and thunder of the waves, and -Slieve League lies superbly up in the sky, reminding one of Browning-- - - "The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay." - -At Glencolumkille we met the fourth of our priests--a tall, thin, -Spanish-looking youth, who came to meet us with a collie at his heels. -Glencolumkille is very lonesome. There is only an Irish-speaking peasant -population of the very poorest, and the nearest one with whom our priest -could exchange a word on his own level was some seven Irish miles away. -He gave us an impression of immense loneliness, although his joy at -having someone to entertain irradiated his melancholy, handsome face -with cheerfulness. He was rejoiced that by the greatest of good luck he -had a bit of meat for dinner, for fish is the staple food of the Glen. -He was very much interested in news from the great world, and produced -with some pride a copy of the _Daily Telegraph_, several days old, to -prove that he kept in touch with the world. He told us that he was the -youngest of a large family, and his home was as far away as Dublin. Over -nearly a score of years I have the most vivid impression of the lonely -figure, the dog at his heels, as we left Glencolumkille behind us. He -had made us free of his house and hospitality, and parted from us with -the utmost unwillingness. - -Ardara, Glenties, Dungloe--I think of them, little villages lying -amongst gorgeous mountains, and remember that in those gloomy and -frowning fastnesses the Irish were safe against Cromwell's planters, -since what man who could choose, not being Irish, would desire to live -in such a place? A Donegal farm is something to remember. The one crop -the ground grows freely is stones--stones in millions, boulders as great -sometimes as a small house. There are glens that are nothing but stones -from end to end, about as promising ground as the Giant's Causeway for a -farmer. In such places you may see a little field, the size of a -tablecloth, snatched from the aridity of Nature by the incredible -industry of man. Everywhere in Donegal man asks Nature for bread and she -gives him a stone, unless it be the harvest of the sea, which he -snatches from her at the price of his life, it may be. - -I saw Donegal in April, softened as much as might be by the wild April -showers and the bursts of April sunshine. The clouds and the mountains, -the cliffs and the sea--Slieve League, Errigal, Muckish, Bunglass, Horn -Head, the Glen Head, Tory Island--were all beautiful beyond telling, -with a wild and stormy magnificence of beauty. I try to imagine their -desolation in winter and fail to realize it. - -Ardara I remember by the beauty of Glengesh on an April day, with a -hundred streams running down its sides; and at Ardara we halted on -Sunday, and knelt in the gallery of the church, looking down at the -peasants kneeling in rows on the stone floor before the altar. The doors -were wide open, and birds wheeled in from the sunlight and out again -with flashing wings; and the air was exquisite, fresh and wild and -sweet. - -At Gweedore, as I have said, we tarried nearly a week, held there by the -hospitality of the parish priest, who would have us see everything -thoroughly. We stayed at an idyllic little inn, and were fed on the -best and simplest fare: stirabout, made as only the Irish can make it; -home-made bread; delicious butter, new-laid eggs; little delicate -chickens, with green parsley sauce and boiled bacon, potatoes, and -cabbage, cooked as only the Irish can cook them; for in certain simple -dishes of their own the Irish cannot be beaten. - -[Illustration: A DONEGAL HARVEST.] - -There was a most picturesque waiting-maid, a shy little girl, as pretty -as a picture, who wore a pink cotton frock, and had pink bare feet -showing under it, who had the softest, most appealing of voices. - -At the inn our priest found us, sallying in with his great blackthorn in -his hand to see who were the strange visitors to the Glen. He was a -redoubtable priest--the Law of Gweedore, they called him--and he -sheltered his people as the hen sheltereth her chickens. The Glen was -exquisitely clean from end to end, though starveling poor. But the -priest saw to it that they did not starve. - -For four or five days, perhaps, we abode in this little inn, where the -Glen opens out to the sea. We visited the people in their cottages, -under the guidance of our redoubtable _padre_, and saw all there was to -be seen. His hospitality was unbounded, although at the time there was a -wide and bitter division in politics between us. - -I shall not soon forget the manner of our going. We had come now almost -to the end of our journey, and it was desirable that we should return to -Dublin as quickly as possible. He wanted us to make the journey round by -Bloody Foreland, and we wanted to do it as shortly as possible, striking -inland to meet the mail-car for Letterkenny at, I think, Gortahork. But -we knew better than to say "No" to the Law of Gweedore; so we thought to -slip away early in the morning, and made our arrangements the last thing -at night, after leaving his hospitable roof. - -But the Law of Gweedore knew all that happened in Gweedore. A full hour -before we had appointed for being called we were called. His Reverence -had arranged our conveyance, and _paid for it_--paid also, I think, for -a luncheon-basket. Willy-nilly, we went round by Bloody Foreland and -visited the evicted tenants, crouching under scraws and twigs, in -shelters which suggested the caves of the earth-dwellers rather than -anything fit for man. - -Gortahork I remember as a place where we had a good meal of tea and hot -cakes and eggs, and other things thrown in, for a shilling. And I -remember also the long, long drive to Letterkenny--some forty miles it -was, I seem to remember, but shall not pledge myself to it lest I be -confuted--and how we dashed along the sides of precipices, we on one -side of the car, with our feet almost touching earth, the other side -high in air, being weighted only with empty parcel-post hampers, of -which Donegal needs no great supply; below us--far, far below--a valley -filled in with mighty stones and rocks. The pace was so fast that we -could hardly keep our seats, though well accustomed to that car which -the unlettered English tripper is apt to call "a jolting car"; and the -driver was quite unaware of our discomfort, assuring us with as much -jocularity as a Donegal man permits himself that the horses never were -known to stumble, and that, although an occasional English tourist did -fall off, he or she always "fell soft." - -After all, when I look back to that scamper through Donegal sixteen -years ago, I remember the mountains and the priests. Monuments of a -beautiful hospitality, the priests for me mark the wild ways up and down -Donegal. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -IRISH TRAITS AND WAYS - - -An English person in Ireland may find himself astray because he will -have no clue to the minds of the people. I once heard two English ladies -returning from an Irish trip say to each other across a -railway-carriage, otherwise full of Irish people, that the Irish all -told lies. This was a rash judgment and a harsh one; I do not know what -the occasion of it was. Sometimes the Irish, through their naturally -gracious manners, will say the thing that will please you best to hear -rather than the absolute truth by rule of thumb. There is the -well-known, well-founded complaint about Irish distances; a peasant will -tell you that you are three miles from a place when you are really -seven. Now, of course you may be misled by the difference between the -Irish and English mile; and thereby hangs a tale. The Irish or -Plantation measure was adopted by Cromwell's planted English, so that -they might get a bigger slice of land than was intended for them. But if -you are told you have three Irish miles to go and find that you have -seven, almost certainly the thought uppermost in your misinformant's -mind was: "The crathur! Sure, he'll think nothin' of it if he believes -it's only three miles; and the spring 'ud be taken out of him altogether -if he thought he'd seven weary miles before him yet. And, sure, by the -time he's travelled the three miles he won't be far off the seven." - -The Irish mind, besides being very nimble, is subtle and complicated. It -may have gone off on an excursion before answering you which you in your -Anglo-Saxon plainness would never dream of; and your truth may not be -the Irish truth at all, and yet both of them be the genuine article. - -A very small Irish boy of my acquaintance, being rudely accused of -having told a lie, responded meekly: "I don't think it were really a -lie; I think it were only an imagination." - -"Are there any priests in the town?" you ask an Irishman; and he -replies, there being some half-dozen: "The streets are black with them." - -"You can't always depend on eggs, not if they comes in fresh from the -nest," said an Irish servant to me, when some of the grocer's "new-laid" -eggs had "popped" in the saucepan. The remark was purely consolatory -and was not at all intended to convey that the hens laid stale eggs. - -The Irish "bull," so-called, very often is the result of the -nimble-wittedness of the speaker. He has thought more than he has -expressed, and the bull implies a hiatus. "I'd better be a coward for -ten minutes than be dead all my life" is a famous example of an Irish -bull; but it only means "all the days of my natural life"; so much was -not expressed. - -My harsh critics of the London and North-Western express would doubtless -have found the soft, flattering ways of the Irish false and -hypocritical. One remembers the famous compliment, "No matter what age -you are, ma'am, you don't look it," and the historical compliment of the -Irish coal-porter to one of the beautiful Gunnings: "Sure, I could light -my pipe by the fire of her eye." - -Sometimes a compliment or a wheedling good wish will take a sudden turn. -"May the blessin' of God go afther you!" says an Irish beggar--"may the -blessin' of God go afther you!" The desired alms not being forthcoming, -the blessing flows naturally into--"and never overtake you." - -The beggars are great wits, of a sardonic kind usually. A rather short -friend of mine walking with his tall sister, the two were importuned -fruitlessly by a beggar-woman. Before they passed out of hearing she -called gently to the lady: "Well, there you go! And goodness help the -poor little crathur that hadn't the spirit to say no to you." This -double insult to the supposed husband and wife was very neat. - -A matter-of-fact young sister of mine, having been begged from by a -ragged woman with a string of ragged children at one end of the village, -was importuned at the other end by a man, similarly accompanied, whom -she took rightly to be the woman's mate. "We're poor orphans," whined -the second string of children; "our poor mother's dead and buried." "I -don't believe it," she said; "I met your mother at the other end of the -village." "Take no notice of her, childer," said the man sorrowfully. -"It wouldn't be right to touch a penny of her money. She's an -unbeliever--that's what she is." - -An old beggar-man, to whom I explained apologetically that I was without -my purse, looked at me benevolently. "Never mind!" he said; "you'd give -it if you had it, wouldn't you? But there's one thing I want to tell -you: your dog's gone home without you." I don't quite know how it was -meant, but it conveyed to me a sense of well-meaning failure and -inefficiency generally. - -The salutations in Ireland used to be delightful. I hope it may be long -before they are out of date. "God save you kindly," was the salutation -on the roadside. "God save all here!" you said, entering a house. And if -any work was in progress, you said: "God bless the work!" If they were -churning in the kitchen as you entered it, with the old up-and-down -dasher or "dash," as I knew it, you took a few turns with the dash lest -you should carry off the butter. Butter and milk are things often -charmed away. When I was a young girl, there was at Lucan, in the county -Dublin, a fairy doctor, who was called in if the cows weren't milking -well, or the butter didn't come to the churn, or if the beasts were -ailing. A more Christian thing was to bring the live-stock to the priest -to be blessed, or to bring the priests to the field to bless them, which -is done every year. Even the Orangeman of the North, if he has a cow -ailing, thinks it not amiss to ask for the priest's blessing. All the -same, the Irish Celts, in their superstitions, have a way of rounding on -their good friends, the priests. Priests' marriages--that is, marriages -arranged by the priests--are proverbially unlucky. And to buy the -priest's cow in a fair is notoriously unlucky for the general dealing -of the day, as well as that particular one. - -[Illustration: A HOME IN DONEGAL.] - -The freedom of the people with their superiors is often a -stumbling-block to the stranger; while to the Irish man or woman the -division between classes in England will seem strange and -unnatural--inhuman almost. "That's an elegant new trousers you have on, -Master John," I heard an apple-woman by the kerb say to a young -gentleman. The intimacy is not at all presumptuous; very far from it. -Indeed, Irish people coming to live in England often blunder into -treating their inferiors with the easy intimacy of the life at home, -only to find that it is neither desired nor expected. - -Irish servants of the old class were retainers and very much devoted to -the families they lived with. The conditions were strange and difficult -to those not accustomed to them. You would find a family of the gentry -of the lowest Low Church on terms of tender affection with its -Papistical servants and with the neighbouring peasants. They would have -told you as abstract facts that Home Rule would mean the massacre of the -Protestants, and that already their lands and properties were -partitioned in the secret councils of whatever League happened to be -uppermost at the moment. It would be an article of their creed that the -priests were accountable for all the troubles of Ireland. They would -have consented generally to the axiom that no Irish Papist told the -truth. Yet they would always exempt their own servants, and perhaps -their own tenants, and would fly at you as being anti-Irish if you -suggested a flaw in the Irish character, or even an excellency in the -English, which is almost as bad, if not quite. There are families of -Irish gentlefolk come down in the world whose servants, having feasted -with them, starve with them. One such servant I knew who managed the -whole finances of the family, and laid out the few coins to the greatest -advantage, allotting the supplies with a carefulness which must have -been bitter to her Irish heart. If the family lived too well at the -beginning of the week, it must go hungry at the end. - -In an Irish house the young ladies and gentlemen are very often found in -the kitchen, not in pursuit of the housewifely virtues, but for social -reasons. The kitchen-fire is the best "to have a heat by." The cook will -rake out the ashes and make the fire bright for Master Rody or Miss -Sheila to warm their feet by; and in the kitchen Irish children of the -gentle class get filled to the lips with the peculiarly awful -ghost-stories of the Celt, with old songs and charms and folklore of -one sort or another; sometimes, too, with old legends and stories which -make young rebels of the children of the garrison and perhaps old rebels -as well. There is no nurse so warm and comfortable as a good Irish -nurse, as the little children of the Irish nobility and gentry--invading -or planted families, very often--found, drawing life from an Irish -breast, and wrapped up in a comfortable Irish embrace from all ghosts -and hobgoblins. - -I remember the young daughter of very Evangelical gentlepeople in -Ireland who used to spend her Sunday afternoons, with the full knowledge -of her parents, seated on the kitchen-table reading Papistical -newspapers to the servants, whom she adored, and who adored her with at -least an equal warmth. Her gold watch was the gift of one old servant; -and on the eve of her marriage to a London curate she found pinned to -her pincushion an envelope containing a five-pound note--"For my darling -Miss Biddy, from Mary Anne." - -It has always seemed to me that the tie is closer and tenderer between -the Irish Catholic servant and the Protestant gentry than when the -employers are also of the old religion. It is certain that in the -burning of Scullabogue Barn, and at the Bridge of Wexford, during the -Rebellion, Catholic servants perished with their Protestant employers. - -The tender concern that may be shown for you by an Irish person of whom -you ask the way will stir you to wonderment. "Is it permissible to walk -on the sea-wall?" a friend of mine asked of an Irish policeman. "Sure it -is; but I wouldn't do it if I was you. It 'ud be terrible cowld," was -the reply. "I wouldn't walk it if I was you," you may be answered when -you ask how far a place is; "you wouldn't be killin' yourself--now, -would you?" - -When ladies first rode the bicycle in Ireland they excited different -emotions, according to the character of the looker-on. "What would the -blessed saints in heaven think of you?" the old women used to call out; -but one old man had only compassion for the female cyclist. "God help -yez," he said; "'tis killin' yourselves yez'll be with them little -wheely things, bad luck to them!" - -You will find the soft, insinuating ways in a shop when you make a -purchase or mean to make one. "It looks lovely on you," a shop-assistant -will say, with an air of being dispassionate. "Can you send this home -to-night?" you ask, having concluded your purchase. "Sure, why not?" If -you are English-born and bred, you will be at a loss to say why not. - -A policeman in Dublin will direct you: "You take that turn over there, -an' you go along till you meet a turn on your left, but you'll take no -notice of that; you'll keep straight on, and there'll be another turn, -but you'll take no notice of that. An' after that, you'll come to a -third turn, an' you'll take notice of that, for that's the street you're -after." - -I recognized a countryman of my own in London when I asked a policeman -the way and demurred from his instructions, remarking that I had been -told to approach by a different way. "Sure you can, if you like," he -said, looking at me with his head on one side, "but I wouldn't if I was -you; it 'ud be a terrible long way round." - -An Irishman will always agree with you if he can--or even if he can't. -It is the Irish politeness. If you were to say to him, "Three years ago -to-day I had as bad a cold as ever I had in my life," he will say, "To -be sure you had; I remember it well. 'Twas a terrible dose of a cowld, -all out." This makes the Irish a very agreeable people to live with if -you have not offended them. - -There are one or two virtues, not of the shining sort, which are hardly -virtues at all, but rather vices to the Irish. Thrift is one of these. -Another is its cousin, punctuality. No Irishman holds punctuality in -honour. Irish time is twenty-five minutes later than English time and -takes a deal longer than that to come up with English time. Any time at -all will do for an Irishman. "Punctuality is the thief of time" is one -of his axioms. Above all things, he despises punctuality about -meal-times, and this, I know, will wring an Englishman's withers. An -Irish meal is served whenever it is ready; and if it is never ready at -all, the Irishman will take a snack when he feels he really wants it. No -Irishman is ill-tempered because his meals are late. He prides himself -on his indifference to food as one of the things that set him apart from -the unspiritual Saxon. You could hardly offend an Irishman more than by -accusing him of having a hearty appetite. His meals are all movable -feasts. Oddly enough, the Anglo-Irishman is quite as unpunctual as the -Celt, if not more so. He assimilates the ways of the Celt, while the -Celt remains untouched by his. The Anglo-Irishman is often as good a -trencherman as his English brother, but he would never think of -disturbing the machinery of Irish life so far as to expect his dinner at -a given time. I have been asked to dine in Dublin and have arrived -punctually, only to find the tradesmen's carts delivering the dinner; -and, having grown accustomed to English ways, I have made a frantic -effort to arrive at the appointed hour for a luncheon-party, only to -find the hostess lying down with toothache, and the drawing-room fire -still unlit. - -To be sure, you may arrive at a house at any hour of the day in Ireland -and fall in for a meal. If you arrive at a time within at all measurable -distance of meal-time, you shall not go forth unfed, although you be -press-ganged to stay. I shall never forget the horror of my Irish -friends when they heard that one was allowed to leave an English house -with the dinner-bell in one's ears. "It must be an _awful_ country," -they said; then, detecting something of guilt, perhaps, in my air, they -ventured: "But that wouldn't happen in an _Irish_ house--not in -_yours_." When I confessed that it had happened in mine they changed the -subject. If they had allowed themselves to speak, they would have said -too much. - -I know an Irishman settled in England--a North of Ireland, that is to -say a Scotch-Irishman, and a man of business--who always has the motor -round for a spin as soon as the dinner-bell rings. He cannot keep his -English servants, and is grieved at their perversity, which would keep -him chained to a hot dining-room on an ideal evening for a motor-run. -His guests stay their hunger with sherry and biscuits while they await -his return. - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Peeps at Many Lands: Ireland, by Katharine Tynan - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT MANY LANDS: IRELAND *** - -***** This file should be named 43623-8.txt or 43623-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/6/2/43623/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Peeps at Many Lands: Ireland - -Author: Katharine Tynan - -Illustrator: Francis S. Walker - -Release Date: September 2, 2013 [EBook #43623] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT MANY LANDS: IRELAND *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="border: 2px black solid;text-align:center;margin:auto auto;max-width:55%; -padding:1%;"> -<tr><td> -Every attempt has been made to replicate the original as printed.<br /> -Some illustrations -have been moved from mid-paragraph for ease of reading.<br /> -<span class="nonvis">In certain versions of this etext, in certain browsers, -clicking on this symbol above the image <img class="enlargeimage" src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" title="enlarge-image" height="14" width="18" /> -will bring up a larger version of the image.</span><br /> -<a href="#CONTENTS">Contents</a><br /> -<a href="#LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS">List of Illustrations</a><br /> -(etext transcriber's note)</td></tr> -</table> - -<p><a name="bookcover" id="bookcover"></a></p> - -<p class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="314" height="500" alt="bookcover" title="bookcover" /></a> -</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 319px;"> -<a href="images/ill_002_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -<br /> -<img src="images/ill_002_sml.jpg" width="319" height="450" alt="inside cover" title="inside cover" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="c"><small>VOLUMES UNIFORM WITH THIS</small></p> - -<div class="bbox"> -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="border:none;"> - -<tr valign="top"><th colspan="3" align="center">PEEPS AT MANY LANDS AND CITIES</th></tr> - -<tr valign="top"><td colspan="3" align="center"><small>EACH CONTAINING 12 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR</small></td></tr> - -<tr valign="top"> -<td>AUSTRALIA<br /> -BELGIUM<br /> -BERLIN<br /> -BURMA<br /> -CANADA<br /> -CEYLON<br /> -CHINA<br /> -CORSICA<br /> -DENMARK<br /> -EDINBURGH<br /> -EGYPT<br /> -ENGLAND<br /> -FINLAND<br /> -FRANCE<br /> -GERMANY</td> - -<td class="bl">GREECE<br /> -HOLLAND<br /> -HOLY LAND<br /> -HUNGARY<br /> -ICELAND<br /> -INDIA<br /> -IRELAND<br /> -ITALY<br /> -JAMAICA<br /> -JAPAN<br /> -KASHMIR<br /> -KOREA<br /> -LONDON<br /> -MOROCCO<br /> -NEW YORK</td> - -<td class="bl">NEW ZEALAND<br /> -NORWAY<br /> -PARIS<br /> -PORTUGAL<br /> -ROME<br /> -RUSSIA<br /> -SCOTLAND<br /> -SIAM<br /> -SOUTH AFRICA<br /> -SOUTH SEAS<br /> -SPAIN<br /> -SWEDEN<br /> -SWITZERLAND<br /> -TURKEY<br /> -WALES</td> -</tr> -</table> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> - -<tr valign="top"><th colspan="3" align="center">PEEPS AT NATURE</th></tr> - -<tr valign="top"><td>WILD FLOWERS AND THEIR<br /> -WONDERFUL WAYS<br /> -BRITISH LAND MAMMALS</td> -<td> </td> -<td>BIRD LIFE OF THE<br /> -SEASONS<br /> -THE HEAVENS</td></tr> - -<tr valign="top"><th colspan="3" align="center">PEEPS AT HISTORY</th></tr> - -<tr valign="top"><td>CANADA<br /> -INDIA</td> -<td> </td> -<td>JAPAN<br /> -SCOTLAND</td></tr> - -<tr valign="top"><th colspan="3" align="center">PEEPS AT GREAT RAILWAYS</th></tr> - -<tr valign="top"><td colspan="3" align="center">THE LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY<br /> -THE NORTH-EASTERN AND GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAYS</td></tr> - -<tr valign="top"><td class="bt" colspan="3" align="center"><small>PUBLISHED BY ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK<br /> -SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.</small></td></tr> -</table> -</div> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="font-size:80%;"> -<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">AGENTS</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left">AMERICA</td><td align="left">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">64 & 66 Fifth Avenue, NEW YORK</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left">AUSTRALASIA</td><td align="left">OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">205 Flinders Lane, MELBOURNE</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left">CANADA</td><td align="left">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD.</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">St. Martin’s House, 70 Bond Street, TORONTO</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left">INDIA</td><td align="left">MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD.</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">Macmillan Building, BOMBAY</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">309 Bow Bazaar Street, CALCUTTA</td></tr> -</table> - -<p><a name="FRONT" id="FRONT"></a></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width:547px;"> -<a href="images/ill_003_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -<br /> -<img src="images/ill_003_sml.jpg" -class="bord" -width="547" height="363" alt="THE EAGLE’S NEST, KILLARNEY." title="THE EAGLE’S NEST, KILLARNEY." /></a> -<br /> -<p class="caption">THE EAGLE’S NEST, KILLARNEY.</p> -</div> - -<h1> -<a href="images/ill_004_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -<br /> -<img src="images/ill_004_sml.jpg" -width="348" -height="500" -alt="PEEPS AT MANY LANDS - -IRELAND - -BY - -KATHARINE TYNAN - -AUTHOR OF “THE DEAR IRISH GIRL,” “AN ISLE IN THE -WATER,” ETC. - -WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS -IN COLOUR - -BY - -FRANCIS S. WALKER, R.H.A. - -LONDON -ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK -1911" -title="PEEPS AT MANY LANDS - -IRELAND - -BY - -KATHARINE TYNAN - -AUTHOR OF “THE DEAR IRISH GIRL,” “AN ISLE IN THE -WATER,” ETC. - -WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS -IN COLOUR - -BY - -FRANCIS S. WALKER, R.H.A. - -LONDON -ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK -1911" /></a> -</h1> - -<p class="c"><small><i>First printed November, 1909<br /> -Reprinted October, 1910, and September, 1911</i></small></p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="" - class="sml"> - -<tr><td>CHAPTER</td><td> </td><td>PAGE</td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td> ARRIVAL </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_001">1</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td> DUBLIN</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_006">6</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td> THE IRISH COUNTRY</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_020">20</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td> THE IRISH PEOPLE</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_027">27</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td> SOUTH OF DUBLIN</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_038">38</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td> THE NORTH</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_044">44</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td> CORK AND THEREABOUTS</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_049">49</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td> GALWAY</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_058">58</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td> DONEGAL OF THE STRANGER</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_065">65</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td><td> IRISH TRAITS AND WAYS</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_076">76</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="" - class="sml"> - -<tr><td>THE EAGLE’S NEST, KILLARNEY</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><i><a href="#FRONT">Frontispiece</a></i></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" colspan="2"><small>FACING PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td>A VILLAGE IN ACHILL</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#ACHILL">viii</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_009">9</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>DUBLIN BAY FROM VICTORIA HILL</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_016">16</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>BLARNEY CASTLE</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_025">25</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>OFF TO AMERICA</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_032">32</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>A WICKLOW GLEN</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_041">41</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>THE RIVER LEE</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_048">48</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>RALEIGH’S HOUSE, MYRTLE GROVE</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_057">57</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>GLENCOLUMBKILLE HEAD</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_064">64</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>A DONEGAL HARVEST</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_073">73</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>A HOME IN DONEGAL</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_080">80</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>DIGGING POTATOES</td><td><i><a href="#bookcover">on the cover</a></i></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="center" colspan="2"><i>Sketch-Map of Ireland on <a href="#SKETCH">p. vii</a></i></td></tr> -</table> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 348px;"> -<a href="images/ill_005_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /></a> -<a href="images/ill_005_largest.jpg"> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="28" -height="28" /></a> -<br /> -<a name="SKETCH" id="SKETCH"></a> -<a href="images/ill_005_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/ill_005_sml.jpg" -class="bord" width="348" height="500" alt="SKETCH-MAP OF IRELAND." title="SKETCH-MAP OF IRELAND." /></a> -<p class="caption">SKETCH-MAP OF IRELAND.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 552px;"><a name="ACHILL" id="ACHILL"></a> -<a href="images/ill_006_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -<br /> -<img src="images/ill_006_sml.jpg" -class="bord" width="552" height="381" alt="A VILLAGE IN ACHILL." title="A VILLAGE IN ACHILL." /></a> -<p class="caption">A VILLAGE IN ACHILL.</p> -</div> - -<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="IRELAND" id="IRELAND"></a>IRELAND</h2> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I<br /><br /> -<small>ARRIVAL</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">I<small>T</small> may safely be said that any boy or girl who takes a peep at Ireland -will want another peep. Between London and Ireland, so far as atmosphere -and the feeling of things is concerned, there is a world of distance. Of -course, it is the difference between two races, for the Irish are mainly -Celtic, and the Celtic way of thinking and speaking and feeling is as -different as possible from the Saxon or the Teuton, and the Celt has -influenced the Anglo-Irish till they are as far away from the English -nearly as the Celts themselves. If you are at all alert, you will begin -to find the difference as soon as you step off the London and North -Western train at Holyhead and go on board the steamer for Kingstown. The -Irish steward and stewardess will have a very different way from the -formal English way. They will be expansive. They will use ten<a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a> words to -one of the English official. Their speech will be picturesque; and if -you are gifted with a sense of humour—and if you are not, you had -better try to beg, borrow or steal it before you go to Ireland—there -will be much to delight you. I once heard an Irish steward on a long-sea -boat at London Docks remonstrate with the passengers in this manner:</p> - -<p>“Gentlemen, gentlemen, will yez never get to bed? Yez know as well as I -do that every light on the boat is out at twelve o’clock. It’s now a -quarter to wan, and out goes the lights in ten minutes.”</p> - -<p>There is what the Englishman calls an Irish bull in this speech; but the -Irish bull usually means that something is left to the imagination. I -will leave you to discover for yourself the hiatus which would have made -the steward’s remark a sober English statement.</p> - -<p>These things make an Irish heart bound up as exultantly as the lark -springs to the sky of a day of April—that is to say, of an Irish exile -home-returning—for the dweller in Ireland grows used to such pearls of -speech.</p> - -<p>Said a stewardess to whom I made a request that she would bring to my -cabin a pet-dog who, under the charge of the cook, was making the night -ring<a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a> with his lamentations: “Do you want to have me murdered?” This -only conveyed that it was against the regulations. But while she looked -at me her eye softened. “I’ll do it for <i>you</i>,” she said, with a subtle -suggestion that she wouldn’t do it for anyone else; and then added -insinuatingly, “if the cook was to mind the basket?” “To be sure,” said -I, being Irish. “Ask the cook if he will kindly mind the basket and let -me have the dog.” And so it was done, and the cook had his perquisite, -while I had the dog.</p> - -<p>At first, unless you have a very large sense of humour—and many English -people have, though the Irish who do not know anything about them deny -it to them <i>en bloc</i>—you will be somewhat bewildered. Apropos of the -same little dog, we asked a policeman at the North Wall, one wintry -morning of arrival, if the muzzling order was in force in Dublin.</p> - -<p>“Well, it is and it isn’t,” he said. “Lasteways, there’s a muzzlin’ -order on the south side, but there isn’t on the north, through Mr. L—— -on the North Union Board, that won’t let them pass it. If I was you I’d -do what I liked with the dog this side of the river, but when I crossed -the bridge I’d hide him. You’ll be in a cab, won’t you?<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a>”</p> - -<p>After you’ve had a few peeps at Ireland, you won’t want the jokes -explained to you, perhaps, or the picturesqueness of speech -demonstrated.</p> - -<p>Before you glide up to the North Wall Station you will have discovered -some few things about Ireland besides the picturesqueness of the Irish -tongue. You will have seen the lovely coast-line, all the townships -glittering in a fairy-like atmosphere, with the mountains of Dublin and -Wicklow standing up behind them. You will have passed Howth, that -wonderful rock, which seems to take every shade of blue and purple, and -silver and gold, and pheasant-brown and rose. You will have felt the -Irish air in your face; and the Irish air is soft as a caress. You will -have come up the river, its squalid and picturesque quays. You will have -noticed that the poor people walking along the quay-side are far more -ragged and unkempt generally than the same class in England. The women -have a way of wearing shawls over their heads which does not belong -naturally to the Western world, and sets one to thinking of the curious -belief some people have entertained about the Irish being descended from -the lost tribes. A small girl in a Dublin street will hold her little -shawl across her mouth, revealing no more of the face than the eyes and -nose, with an effect which is distinctly<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> Eastern. The quay-side streets -are squalid enough, and the people ragged beyond your experience, but -there will be no effect of depression and despondency such as assails -you in the East End of London. The people are much noisier. They greet -each other with a shrillness that reminds you of the French. The streets -are cheerful, no matter how poor they may be. I have always said that -there is ten times the noise in an Irish street, apart from mere -traffic, than in an English one. An Irish village is full of noise, -chatter of women, crying of children, barking of dogs, lowing of cattle, -bleating of sheep, crowing of cocks, cackling of hens, quacking of -ducks, grunting of pigs. The people talk at the top of their voices, so -that you might suppose them to be quarrelling. It is merely the dramatic -sense. I have heard an Irish peasant make a bald statement—or, at -least, it would have been bald in an English mouth—as though she -pleaded, argued, remonstrated, scolded, deprecated.</p> - -<p>Accustomed to Irish ways, English villages have always appeared very -dead to me. Unless it be on market morning, one might be in the Village -of the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty. I once visited Dunmow of the -Flitch of a golden May-day. It was neither Flitch Day nor Market Day, -and I aver that<a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a> I walked through the town and saw no living creature, -except a cat fast asleep, right in the midst of the sun-baked roadway. -Such a thing could not have happened in Ireland.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II<br /><br /> -<small>DUBLIN</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">D<small>UBLIN</small> is a city of magnificences and squalors. It has the widest street -in Europe, they say, in Sackville Street, which, after the manner of the -policeman and the muzzling order, half the population calls O’Connell -Street. The public buildings are very magnificent. These are due, for -the greater part, to the man who found Dublin brick and left it -marble—that great city-builder, John Claudius Beresford, of the latter -half of the eighteenth century, whose name is at once famous and -infamous to the Irish ear, because when he had made a new Dublin he -flogged rebels in Beresford’s Riding-School in Marlborough Street with a -thoroughness which left nothing to be desired except a little mercy. -Beresford, who was one of the Waterford Beresfords, was First -Commissioner of Revenue, as well as an Alderman of<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a> the City of Dublin. -Before he went city-building, Dublin was a small place enough. For -centuries it consisted chiefly of Dublin Castle, the two -cathedrals—Patrick’s and Christ’s Church; Dublin is alone in Northern -Europe in possessing two cathedrals—and the narrow streets that -clustered about them. Somewhere about the middle of the eighteenth -century St. Stephen’s Green was built—the finest square in Europe, we -say; I do not know if the claim be well founded. A little later -Sackville Street began to take shape, communicating with the other bank -of the river by ferry-boats. Essex Bridge was at that time the most -easterly of the bridges, and the banks of the river were merely -mud-flats, especially so where James Gandon’s masterpiece, the -Custom-House, was presently to rear its stately façade. The latter part -of the eighteenth century was the great age of Dublin. Ireland still had -its Lords and Commons, who had declared their legislative independence -of England in 1782. Society was as brilliant as London, and far gayer. -It was certainly a time in which to go city-building, for these -splendours needed housing. Before Beresford began his plans, calling in -the genius of James Gandon, with many lesser lights, to assist him, -Sackville Street and Dublin generally were as insanitary as any town of<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a> -the Middle Ages. Open sewers ran down the middle of the streets. There -was no pretence at paving. The streets were ill-lit by smelly oil-lamps. -The Dublin watchmen found plenty to do, as did their brethren in London, -in protecting peaceful citizens from the pranks of the Dublin brethren -of the London Mohocks in the tortuous and ill-lit streets. Dublin, the -city of the English pale, remained and remains an English city—with a -difference. The Anglo-Irish did the things their London brethren were -doing—with a difference. If there were unholy revels at Medmenham Abbey -on the Thames, they were imitated or excelled by their Irish prototypes, -whose clubhouse you will still see standing up before you a ruin on top -of the Dublin mountains. In many ways the society of Dublin models -itself on London to this day.</p> - -<p>The Lords and Commons of Ireland were already living about the Rotunda -in Sackville Street, Rutland Square, Gardiner’s Row, Great Denmark -Street, Marlborough Street, and North Great George’s Street, when John -Claudius Beresford began his work. He bridged the river with -Carlisle—now O’Connell—Bridge. He constructed Westmoreland Street -right down to the Houses of Parliament.<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 525px;"> -<a href="images/ill_007_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -<br /> -<img src="images/ill_007_sml.jpg" -class="bord" width="525" height="336" alt="SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN." title="SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN." /></a> -<p class="caption">SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN.</p> -</div> - -<p>He built the Custom-House, now a rabbit-warren of Government offices, on -a scale proportioned to the needs of the greatest trading city in -Europe, oblivious of the fact that Irish trade was going or gone; or, -perhaps—who knows?—building for the future. All that part of the city -lying between the new bridge and the Custom-House was laid out in -streets. Meanwhile the nobility and gentry who had town-houses were -seized with the passion for beautifying them. The old Dublin houses were -of an extraordinary stateliness and beauty. Money was poured out like -water on their beautification. The floral decoration in stucco-work on -walls and ceilings still makes a dirty glory in some of the old houses. -Famous artists, like Cipriani and Angelica Kauffmann, painted the -wall-panels and ceilings with pseudo-classical goddesses and nymphs. A -certain Italian named Bossi executed that inlaying in coloured marbles -which made so many of the old mantelpieces things of beauty. The old -Dublin houses still retain their stately proportions, although some of -them have been dismantled and others come down to be tenement-houses. -But there is yet plenty to remind us that Dublin had once its Augustan -Age.</p> - -<p>If you have the tastes of the antiquary, the old<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a> Dublin houses and -buildings will afford you matter of great interest.</p> - -<p>In the first place, there is Dublin Castle, which was built by King -John. Of the four original towers, only one now remains. The castle has -been the town residence of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland since Sidney -established himself there in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. For the rest, -it is a congerie of Government offices of one sort or another.</p> - -<p>The castle was built over the Poddle River, which now creeps in -darkness, degraded to a common sewer, under the dark and dismal houses, -and empties itself in an unclean cascade through a grating in the Quay -walls, whence it flows away with the Liffey to the sea. You can visit -the Chapel Royal, if you will, and the viceregal apartments are -sometimes open to inspection if the Viceroy is not in residence. I lived -many years in Dublin without desiring to inspect what may be seen of -Dublin Castle, though I have often stood in the castle yard under the -Bermingham Tower, and, looking up at that great keep, have remembered -how Hugh O’Donnell and his companions escaped by way of the Poddle one -Christmas Eve in the spacious days of great Elizabeth, and how the young -chieftain of Tyrconnel<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a> narrowly escaped the frozen death which befell -his companions as they climbed those Dublin mountains over yonder to -find refuge with the O’Tooles and O’Byrnes of the Wicklow Hills.</p> - -<p>Those were the Irish clans that used to make the English burghers of -Dublin shake in their shoes. While they sold their silks or woollens, or -sat at meals or exchange, or said their prayers in their churches, they -never could be sure that the wild Irish cry would not come ringing at -their gates. The O’Byrnes and O’Tooles would swoop down at intervals, -and raid the cattle from the fat pastures of the pale, sweeping back -again with their spoil to their impregnable fastnesses. Some years ago a -Father O’Toole published a book on the Clan of O’Toole, which contained -the genealogical tree of the O’Tooles, tracing their descent without a -break from Noah. This is a matter of interest to me, as I myself am an -O’Toole.</p> - -<p>The history of nations is, after all, the history of men—of men and of -movements—and it is individual and outstanding men who make for us the -milestones of history. Ireland has produced, in proportion to her -population, a more than usual number of outstanding men; and, thinking -of Dublin houses and<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a> monuments of one kind or another, we find it is of -men we are thinking, after all.</p> - -<p>Thinking of Christ Church, that beautiful Gothic cathedral, I think of -St. Patrick, because his staff was preserved there, and was an object of -great reverence till it was burnt by a too-zealous reforming Bishop in -the days of Elizabeth. St. Patrick was a very delightful saint. One -loves the legends that gather about him. I like especially how he -wrestled with the angel on Croagh-Patrick, and would not come down from -the mountain till he had been granted his several prayers. There were -three in particular. The first one was that Ireland should never depart -from the Christian faith. “Very well, then,” said the angel, “God grants -you that.” “Next,” said Patrick, “I ask that on the Judgment Day I may -sit on God’s right hand and judge the Irish people.” “That you can’t -have,” said the angel. “Be quiet now, and go down from the mountain.” -“What!” said Patrick, “is it for this that I have fasted so many days on -the mountain, wrested with evil ones, been exposed to the rain and -tempest, prayed hard, fought temptations—only for this?” “Very well, -you shall have this,” replied the angel. “And now that you have your -wish satisfied, go down from the mountain.” “Not till my third prayer be -granted.<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a>” “What! a third prayer?” cried the angel. “You ask too much, O -Patrick, and you shall not have it. You are too covetous.” “Was it for -this?” began Patrick again, with a recital of all he had done and -suffered. “Very well, then,” said the angel, tired out; “have your third -prayer, but ask no more, for it will not be given to you.” “I ask that -all who recite my prayer” (<i>i.e.</i>, the prayer known as St. Patrick’s -Breastplate) “shall not be lost at the Last Day.” “Very well, then,” -said the angel, “you shall have that; but now go down.” “I am content -now,” said Patrick; “I will go down.”</p> - -<p>He was a fighting saint, despite his many gentlenesses. At Downpatrick, -where he built his cathedral, he took a little fawn which his men would -have killed, and carried it in his breast. I like the description of him -by his friend St. Evan of Monasterevan, which tells us how he was sweet -to his friends, but terrible to his enemies.</p> - -<p>I think of St. Patrick at Christ Church rather than of St. Lawrence -O’Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, who, with Strongbow, that fierce Norman -who seized Ireland for Henry II. of England, built Christ Church. St. -Lawrence O’Toole’s heart lies here in a reliquary. Here also Lambert -Simnel was crowned; but who thinks of that ignoble impostor now?<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a></p> - -<p>Christ Church presents an effect of lightness and brightness very -different from St. Patrick’s, in which it seems to me it is always -afternoon, and winter afternoon. Patrick is in a particularly -picturesque slum of the city, in the Earl of Meath’s liberty, hard by -the Coombe, which was once a pleasant dell, no doubt, but is now the -raggedest of slums. To the Earl of Meath’s liberty came the French -silk-weavers expelled from France after the revocation of the Edict of -Nantes, and established the industry of poplin-weaving there.</p> - -<p>The man with whom St. Patrick’s Cathedral is associated is Jonathan -Swift, and for his sake it is perpetually dark. It is haunted by the -tragedy of his life and death. Here Esther Johnson is buried; and over -yonder, in the Deanery House, Swift, a sick man, lay in bed and watched -the torches in the great church when they were making ready her grave. -The strange bitterness of the terrible inscription which commemorates -that most unhappy great man seems to colour the atmosphere of St. -Patrick’s. “Where fierce indignation can no more lacerate his heart,” he -rests by the side of the woman who was faithful to him with a long -patience, whose death left him to loneliness and madness.</p> - -<p>The whole place is haunted by him, as is the<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a> deanery close by and the -old library of Dr. Marsh, which is said to have a ghost that flings the -books about at night.</p> - -<p>What ghosts meet one in the Dublin streets! There is Wesley. He was -visiting the Countess of Moira at Moira House, which now, docked of its -upper story, is the Mendicity, or, as the Irish put it, the “Mendacity” -Institution. It was a splendid mansion when Wesley was there. One room -with a bay-window was lined with mother-o’-pearl. “Alas,” said Wesley -prophetically, “that all this must vanish like a dream!” The Moiras were -not only religious: they were cultivated, refined, patriotic in the -truest sense—altogether noble and generous. They received poor Pamela, -Lady Edward Fitzgerald, with kindly open arms when that romantic hero, -Lord Edward, lay dying of his wounds.</p> - -<p>You shall see, if you will, the old House of Lords, preserved in its old -state by the Governors of the Bank of Ireland, who have made it their -board-room. The House of Commons has become the Bank’s counting-house, -and there is no trace of its former state. What ghosts you might meet -there at night!—Grattan, Flood, Curran, Hussey Burgh, Plunket, to say -nothing of lesser worthies. Over against the Parliament Houses was -Daly’s Club-House, where<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a> forgathered the wits, the bucks, the -duellists. There was Buck Whaley, who walked to Jerusalem for a wager, -and for the same reason once sprang out of the window of his house on -Stephen’s Green into a carriage full of ladies. That house is now -University College, and has its associations with Newman; and you might -see there some of the most beautiful specimens of the eighteenth-century -decoration still remaining—the Bossi mantelpieces, the stucco-work, the -beautiful old doors of wine-red mahogany, and all the rest of it. Buck -Whaley had a friend, Buck Jones, who is commemorated in Jones’s Road. -When I was a little girl—and how long ago that is I shall not tell -you—Buck Jones’s ghost still walked the road which is named after him. -You see, Dublin still ranged itself alongside London; and we had our -Buck Whaley and our Buck Jones if London and Bath had their Beau Brummel -and their Beau Nash.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 516px;"> -<a href="images/ill_008_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -<br /> -<img src="images/ill_008_sml.jpg" -class="bord" width="516" height="404" alt="DUBLIN BAY FROM VICTORIA HILL." title="DUBLIN BAY FROM VICTORIA HILL." /></a> -<p class="caption">DUBLIN BAY FROM VICTORIA HILL.</p> -</div> - -<p>Cheek by jowl with the Houses of Parliament is the ancient college of -Queen Elizabeth—the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. That, -too, has memories and ghosts. The University has had illustrious sons. -Swift, Goldsmith, Bishop Berkeley, Edmund Burke, were among them. Swift -was “stopped of his degree for dulness,” and had no love<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> for his -<i>alma mater</i>. She had other sons, such as Robert Emmet and Theobald -Wolfe Tone and Thomas Davis, among her brightest jewels, though she -would not have it so. She spreads a quiet place of grey quadrangles and -green park and gardens midmost of the city, and she helps to give -dignity to Dublin, already by her Viceregal Court marked as no -provincial town.</p> - -<p>If I were to talk to you of the ancient history of Dublin, this book -would become, not “A Peep at Ireland,” but “A Peep at Dublin.” You will -see for yourself the ancient houses of the nobility, the Lords and -Commons of Ireland. Some of them have come to strange uses. Aldborough -House is a barracks; Powerscourt House was in my day a wholesale -draper’s; Marino, the splendid residence of the Earls of Charlemont at -Clontarf, is in the hands of the Christian Brothers. Many of these old -houses are turned into Government offices.</p> - -<p>“Alas, that all this must vanish like a dream!” said John Wesley. And -how quickly he was justified! In the latter part of the eighteenth -century Dublin prided itself on being the gayest capital in Europe. -Perhaps Dublin had always too many pretensions. However, it was -sufficiently gay and extraordinarily picturesque. The Rutland -viceroyalty<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> marked, perhaps, its highest water-mark of gaiety. It was -said that the Rutlands were sent over “to drink the Irish into -good-humour”—that is, to distract them from serious matters, such as -legislative independence and the like. However that may be, they did set -the capital to dancing. After all, it was always the Anglo-Irish who -counted in the rebellious movements. One has to go as far back as Owen -Roe O’Neill to find a Celtic leader. For the time, at all events, Dublin -gave itself up to the fascinations of the gallant and gay young Duke and -his wonderful Duchess. The Irish allowed that the Duchess was one of the -handsomest women in Ireland. Elsewhere she was reputed among the -loveliest in Europe. We hear of her dancing at a ball attired in light -pink silk, with diamond stomacher and sleeve-knots, and wearing a large -brown hat profusely adorned with jewels. Every night there were balls at -the castle or the Rotunda. The Duchess was dancing Dublin into -good-humour. There were all manner of other social festivities. Every -Sunday the Duchess drove on the North Circular Road, with six -cream-coloured ponies to her phaeton, all the rank and fashion of Dublin -following in coaches-and-six, coaches-and-four, and less pretentious -equipages. There was card-playing; there<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> was hard drinking; there were -all manner of distractions, disedifying and edifying. For then, as now, -the representatives of the King and Queen took the charities under their -wing; and dancing at the Rotunda supported the Rotunda Hospital, to say -nothing of the tax on the waiting sedan-chairs, which put a few hundred -pounds more into the hospital’s coffers.</p> - -<p>“Alas, that all this must vanish like a dream!” To be sure, many of the -most illustrious of the Anglo-Irish, more Irish than the Irish, refused -to be either danced or drunk into good-humour. The brilliant viceroyalty -lasted not quite four years, and the gay and handsome Duke left Ireland -in the saddest way, carried high on men’s shoulders.</p> - -<p>Afterwards there were other things than dancing. There was the Rebellion -of 1798. There was the Legislative Union with Great Britain, which meant -for Ireland the absence of her Lords and gentry, and the spending in -London of revenues derived from Ireland.</p> - -<p>In the early years of the nineteenth century grass grew in the streets -of Dublin. Famine and pestilence followed each other in monotonous -succession. Emmet’s Rebellion broke out in 1804. If you were interested -in such things, you would penetrate the<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> slummy parts of Dublin as far -as Thomas Street to see where, in front of St. Catharine’s Church, Emmet -died, and the house where Lord Edward Fitzgerald was arrested.</p> - -<p>Dublin is full of memories, of associations, of ghosts: no city in -Europe is richer in such. There is hardly a stone of her streets which -is not storied.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III<br /><br /> -<small>THE IRISH COUNTRY</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">D<small>UBLIN</small> possesses great natural advantages. The sea, the mountains, the -green country, are at her gates. You take one of her many trams, and at -the terminus you step into solitudes, into “dear secret greenness” of -country; on to expanses of sea-sand, with the waves breaking in little -crisped curls of foam at your feet. She is ringed about with mountains. -She has a most beautiful coast-line. Turn which way you will on leaving -her, you are safe to turn to beauty. Round about her are clustered -various beauties. Beyond the Dublin mountains, the Wicklow Mountains, -into which they gently pass, invite you. The mountains have the most -beautiful<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a> colouring. It is an effect of the mists and clouds. I have -seen a mountain red as a rose, and I have seen one black as a black -pansy and as velvety. Sometimes they are veiled in silver, with the soft -feet of the flying rain upon them; and sometimes, because the sun is -shining somewhere, that same rain will be a garment of silver or of the -rainbow.</p> - -<p>She is the greenest country ever was seen. England may think she wears -the green; but as compared with Ireland her green is rust-coloured and -dust-coloured. I have gone over from London in May and have found a -green in Ireland that absolutely made me wink.</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Sweet rose whose hue, angry and brave,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Bids the rash gazer wipe the eye,”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">says Herbert; but the green, which is the eye’s comforter of all the -colours, is, in an Irish May, of so intense a greenness as to have -something of the same effect as Herbert’s rose. I think of the fat -pasture-lands at the gates of Dublin, as well I know them. In May they -are drifts of greenness, with the cattle sunken to their knees, while -the meadows white with daisies, gold with buttercups, presently to be -brown and green with seeding-grasses, have an exceeding cleanness and -brightness of aspect. Grass-green, milk-white, pure gold—these are -fields<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> of delight. There used to be luxuriant hedges, too, ten or -twelve feet high. What hedges they were in May! with the hawthorn in -full bloom—no one calls it may in Ireland—and, later, the -woodbine—honeysuckle in Ireland is the white and purple clover—and -with the woodbine the sheets of wild roses flung lavishly over every -hedge. Since my young days an improving county surveyor has cut down the -hedges, though not so ruthlessly as here in Hertfordshire, where they -are noted hedgers and ditchers, and so strip the poor things to the -earth almost, just as they are coming into leaf, leaving the roads -pitiless indeed for the summer days.</p> - -<p>I think of the lavish Irish hedges and of the strip of grass white with -daisies which ran either side of the footpath. There was always a clear -stream singing along the ditch. It had come down from the mountains, and -was amber-brown in colour, and clear as glass; it ran over pebbles that -were pure gold and silver and precious stones, now and again getting -dammed around a boulder, making a leap to escape, and coming around the -boulder with a swirl and a few specks of foam floating upon it. Ireland -of the Streams is one of the old names for Ireland, and it is justified; -for not only are there lordly rivers like the Shannon and the -Blackwater, to mention but two of<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a> them, but there are innumerable -little streams everywhere, undefiled—at least, as I know them—by -factories. You can always kneel down of a summer’s day by one, fill your -two hands full and drink your fill; and that mountain water is better -than any wine. You may track it, if you will, up to the mountains, where -you will find it welling out, perhaps, through the fronds of a -hartstongue fern, the first tiny gush of it; and you will find it -widening out and almost hidden by a million flowers and plants that like -to stand with their feet in water. Or you will see it, cool and deep, -with golden shadows sleeping in it, slipping round little boulders and -clattering over stones, in a tremendous hurry to escape from these sweet -places to the noisome city, where it will lose itself in the sewer water -before it finds its way to the sea.</p> - -<p>There is no such order in an Irish as in an English landscape: none of -the rich, ordered garden air which in England so delights Americans and -colonials. The Irish landscape is always somewhat forlorn, wild and -soft, with an impalpable melancholy upon it—this even in the fat -pasture-lands of Dublin County. How much more so when the bogs spread -their beautiful brown desolation over miles of country, or in the wild -places where man asks for<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> bread and Nature gives him a stone! At its -most prosperous the country is always a little wild, a little mournful, -a barefooted colleen with cloudy hair and shy eyes sometimes tearful, -and no conventional beauty—only something that takes the heart by storm -and holds it fast.</p> - -<p>Irish skies weep a deal. That accounts, of course, for the great -vegetation, the intense greenness. If I did not know the Irish green I -should be unable to realize the mantle of grass-green silk which so -often the old ballad-makers gave their knights and ladies. Knowing the -Irish grass, I see an intenser green than if I did not know it. Where -there are not rocks and stones and mountains, where there is cultivation -in Ireland, there is leafage and grass of great luxuriousness. Of a wet -summer in Ireland you could scarcely walk through the grass; it might -meet above a child’s head. Contrariwise, the flora of Ireland, as I know -it, is much less various and luxuriant than that of England. In a -childhood and youth spent in the Irish country—it was round about -Dublin—I recall only the simpler and commoner wild-flowers. On a chalk -cliff at Dover, when May spread a carpet of flowers, I have seen a -greater variety of wild-flowers than I knew in a lifetime in -Ireland—most of them unknown to me by name.<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 514px;"> -<a href="images/ill_009_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -<br /> -<img src="images/ill_009_sml.jpg" -class="bord" width="514" height="378" alt="BLARNEY CASTLE." title="BLARNEY CASTLE." /></a> -<p class="caption">BLARNEY CASTLE.</p> -</div> - -<p>Nor do I think the birds are so many as in England, perhaps because so -much of Ireland is stripped of its woods; perhaps because Ireland has -been slower to protect the birds than England; perhaps, also, because of -the scantier population, which leaves the birds to suffer hunger in the -winter. There are no nightingales in Ireland, but I do not think we have -missed them, having the thrush and the blackbird, which seem to me to -sing with a richer sweetness in Ireland than in England; but that may be -because the Irish-born person is prone to exaggerate the sweetness he -has lost. But the most characteristic note of the Irish summer is the -corn-crake’s. Somehow the Irish corn-crake has a bigger note and is much -more in evidence than his English brother. All the nights of the early -summer in Ireland he saws away with his rasping note, till the hay is -cut, when he disappears. I suppose one hears him as much in the -day-time, but one does not notice him. He is the harsh Irish -nightingale. Poor fellow! he is often immolated before the -mowing-machine; and you shall see him flying with his long-legged wife -and children—or rather scurrying—to the nearest hedgerow, where there -is always a plentiful supply of grass to cover him till he can make up -his mind to go elsewhere. It is a saying in Ireland that you<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> never see -a corn-crake after the meadows are cut. A learned doctor has assured me -that they migrate to Egypt for the good of their voices.</p> - -<p>For the rest, in the Irish country there are villages of an incredible -poverty. The Irish village mars a landscape, whereas so often an English -one enhances its beauty. There are farmhouses and isolated cottages. The -farmhouses are seldom even pretty. Irish house architecture is terribly -ugly, as a rule, except for the few eighteenth-century houses which -derive from the English. The Irish farmhouse is generally a two-story -building, slated and whitewashed. It is too narrow for its height, -although the height may be no great thing. A mean hall-door in the -middle, with a mean window to either side, three mean windows -above—that is the Irish farmer’s idea of house-building. I remember an -Irishman of genius objecting to Morland that his cottages were -impossible; there was never the like out of Arcadia. As a matter of -fact, the cottages were such as are the commonplaces of English -villages. But no good Irishman will concede to England a beauty, natural -or otherwise, which Ireland does not possess. The country shows many -ruins—ruined houses, the houses of the Irish gentry; ruined mills; -ruined churches and castles; and behind grey<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a> stone walls, unthought of, -uncared for, old disused graveyards filled with prairie grass to the -height of the crumbling walls.</p> - -<p>When the Irish go away they are always lonely for the mountains. No -other mountains are so soft-bosomed and so mild. They have wisps of -cloud lying along the side of them and the blue peak showing above. I -have seen a rainbow, one end of the arch planted in the sea, the other -somewhere behind the mountains, “over the hills and far away.” Seeing -that incomparable sight, I understood why the Irish peasant imagines -fairy treasures hidden at the foot of the rainbow. I, too, have been in -Arcadia.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV<br /><br /> -<small>THE IRISH PEOPLE</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">I <small>MUST</small> warn you, before proceeding to write about the Irish people, that -I have tried to explain them, according to my capacity, a thousand times -to my English friends and neighbours, and have been pulled up short as -many times by the reflection that all I have been saying was -contradicted by some other aspect of my country-people. For we are an -eternally<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> contradictory people, and none of us can prognosticate -exactly what we shall feel, what do, under given circumstances; whereas -the Englishman is simple. He has no mysteries. Once you know him, you -can pretty well tell what he will say, what feel, and do under given -circumstances. You have a formula for him: you have no formula for the -Irish. The Englishman is simple, the Irish complex. The Anglo-Irish, who -stand to most English people for the Irish, have had grafted on to them -the complexity of the Irish without their pliability. It makes, perhaps, -the most puzzling of all mixtures, and it may be the chief difficulty in -a proper estimate of the Irish character.</p> - -<p>They will tell you in Ireland that you have to go some forty or fifty -miles from Dublin before you get into Irish Ireland. There are a good -many Irish in Anglo-Ireland, usually in the humbler walks of life, -whence you shall find in Dublin servants, car-drivers, policemen, -newspaper-boys, and so on, the raciness, the vivacity, the charm, which -in Irish Ireland is a perpetual delight. Dublin drawing-rooms are not -vivacious, nor are the manners gracious, although the Four Courts still -produce a galaxy of wit, and Dublin citizens buttonhole each other with -good stories all along the streets, roaring with<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> laughter in a way that -would be regarded as Bedlam in Fleet Street.</p> - -<p>Get into Irish Ireland and the manners have a graciousness which is like -a blessing. I asked the way in Ballyshannon town once. The woman who -directed me came out into the street and a little way with me, and when -she left me called to me sweetly, “Come back soon to Donegal!” which -left a sense of blessing with me all that day. There was a certain -curly-haired “Wullie,” who drove the long car from Donegal to Killybegs. -I can see “Wullie” yet helping the women on and off the car with their -myriad packages, can see the delightful grief with which he parted from -us, his shining face of welcome when he met us again a fortnight later. -To set against “Wullie” were the car-drivers, who certainly are -unpleasant if the “whip-money” does not come up to their expectations. -We say of such that they are “spoilt by the tourists,” yet I remember -some who were not spoilt by the tourists, although they were perpetually -in touch with them—boatmen and pony-boys at Killarney; and a certain -delightful guide, whose winning gaiety was not at all merely -professional.</p> - -<p>Thinking over my country-people, I say, “They are so-and-so,” and then I -have a misgiving, and I say, “But, after all, they are not so-and-so.<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a>”</p> - -<p>They are the most generous people in the world. They enjoy to the -fullest the delight of giving; and what a good delight that is! I pity -the ungiving people. You will receive more gifts in Ireland in a -twelvemonth than in a lifetime out of it. The first instinct of Irish -liking or loving is to give you something. The giving instinct runs -through all classes. If you sit down in a cabin and see an old piece of -lustre-ware or something else of the sort, do not admire it unless you -mean to accept it; for it will be offered to you, not in the Spanish way -which does not expect acceptance, but in the Irish way which does. I -have many little bits of china given so, usually the one thing of any -consideration or value the donor possessed. I once sought to buy an old -china dish, much flawed and cracked by hot ovens, in a Dublin hotel, as -much to save it from following its fellows to destruction as for any -other reason. The owner would not sell the dish, but he offered it for -my acceptance in such a way that I could not refuse. When I go back to -my old home, the cottagers bring a few new-laid eggs or a griddle-cake -for my acceptance. I have a friend in an Irish village whose income from -an official source is £10 a year. She has a cottage, a few hens, and -enough grass for a cow when she can get one. Her gifts come at<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> -Christmas, at Easter, on St. Patrick’s Day, and on some special, private -feasts of my own—eggs, sweets, flowers, a bit of lace, or a fine -embroidered handkerchief, and, in times of illness, a pair of chickens. -That is royal giving out of so little; and I assure you that it blesses -the giver as well as the recipient.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, the farmers grow thriftier and thriftier. Sir Horace -Plunkett and men like him, truly patriotic Irishmen, are showing them -the way. Successive Land Acts lift them more and more into a position of -security from one of precariousness. They have more money now to put in -the savings-banks. Their prosperity does not mean a higher standard of -living, although that is badly needed. It means more money in the -banks—that is all.</p> - -<p>The Irish are very like the French. If the day should come when they -should learn, like the French, to be thrifty and usurious, I hope I -shall not be there to see it. Better—a thousand times better—that they -should remain royal wastrels to the end.</p> - -<p>As yet we need not fear it. Still, if you ask a drink of water at a -mountain cabin in the poorest parts of Ireland, you are given milk; and -<i>do not offer to pay for it</i>, lest you sink to the lowest place in the -estimation of these splendid givers.</p> - -<p>The hospitality is truly splendid. There is a<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a> saying in Ireland that -they always put an extra bit in the pot for “the man coming over the -hill.” It is an unheard-of thing that you should call at an Irish house -and not be asked if “you’ve a mouth on you.” If your visit be within -anything like measurable distance of meal-time you will be obliged to -stay for the meal.</p> - -<p>In England, when people are poor, or comparatively so, or feel the need -of retrenchment, they “do not entertain.” It is almost the first form of -retrenchment which suggests itself to the Englishman; whereas to curtail -his hospitalities would be the last form of retrenchment to an Irishman, -and you will be entertained generously and lavishly by people you know -to be poor. The Englishman’s different way of looking at the matter is -no doubt partly due to the fact that he is a much more domestic person -than the Irishman, and depends mainly on his family life for his -happiness and pleasure. Now, the French do not give hospitality at all -outside the large family circle, so that in that regard at least the -Irish will have a long way to travel before they touch with the French.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 523px;"> -<a href="images/ill_010_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -<br /> -<img src="images/ill_010_sml.jpg" -class="bord" width="523" height="387" alt="OFF TO AMERICA." title="OFF TO AMERICA." /></a> -<p class="caption">OFF TO AMERICA.</p> -</div> - -<p>I have said that the Irish are not domestic. They are gregarious, but -not domestic. The Irishman depends a deal on the neighbours; he has no -such<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> way of enclosing himself within a little fortified place of home -against all the ills of the world as has the Englishman. Irish mothers, -like Irish nurses, are often tenderly, exquisitely soft and warm; but -the young ones will fly out of the nest for all that. Perhaps the art of -making the home pleasant is not an Irish art. Perhaps it is the -gregariousness, general and not particular—at least, general in the -sense of embracing the parish and not the family. To the young Irish and -a good many of their elders the home is dull. They go off to America, -leaving the old people to loneliness, because there is no amusement. -They do not make their own interests, as the slower, less vivacious -nations do. The rainy Irish climate seems made for a people who would -find their pleasures indoors. But the Irish will be out and about, -telling good stories and hearing them. They are an artistic people, with -great traditions; yet books or music or conversation will not keep them -at home. If they cannot have the neighbours in, they will go out to the -neighbours.</p> - -<p>They are very religious, and accept the invisible world with a -thoroughness and simplicity of belief which they would say themselves is -their most precious inheritance. The Celt is no materialist. He does not -love success or riches; most of those whom<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a> he holds in esteem have been -neither successful nor rich. Money is not the passport to his -affections. He ought never to go away, and, alas! he goes away in -thousands! Contact with the selfish, money-getting materialism has power -to destroy the spiritual qualities of the Celt, once he is outside -Ireland. When he comes back—a prosperous Irish-American—he is no -longer the Celt we loved. And he does come back: that is one of his -contradictions. The home he has left behind because of its dulness, the -arid patch of mountain-land, the graves of his people, call him back -again at the moment when one would have said every bond with them was -loosened.</p> - -<p>He is full of sentiment, yet he makes mercenary marriages. The Irish -match-making customs are well known. In the South and West of Ireland -the prospective bride is bargained over with no more sentiment than if -she were a heifer. She may be “turned down” for an iron pot or a -feather-bed which her mother will not give up to supplement the dowry. -Satin cheeks and speedwell eyes and a head of silk like the raven’s -plume will not count against a bullock extra with a yellow spinster of -greater fortune, or is not supposed to count; for sometimes Cupid steps -in, although the match-making customs are usually accepted as -unquestioningly as a similar<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> institution is by the French. And even in -such unpromising soil flowers of love and tenderness will spring up. -Under my hand I have a letter from an Irish peasant which I think -affords a beautiful refutation of the idea that sentiment and -match-making cannot go together. Here is a passage from it:</p> - -<p>“For the last few weeks I was anxiously engaged at match-making, as -matters were going from bad to worse; having no housekeeper, household -jobs and cares prevented me from attending to outside work. Well, at -last my match is made. The marriage is to take place next Thursday. The -‘young girl’ is twenty-two years, and I thank God that I am perfectly -satisfied with my life-companion-to-be. There were many other matches -introduced to me—far more satisfactory from the financial point of -view, some having £20, some £30, and one £40 more fortune than my -intended wife has, with whom I am getting but £90, while I must ‘by -will’ give £120 to my brother, leaving a deficit of £30; but, somehow, I -could not satisfy my mind with the other ‘good girls’ if they had over -£200—nay, at all. And the poet’s words were true when he said something -like ‘pity is akin to love’; pity I felt first for my intended wife, -with her simple, yet wise, unaffected ways, not used to world’s ways and -wiles,<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a> ‘an unspoiled child of Nature,’ never flirted, never went to -dances, with the bloom of her maidenhood fresh and pure, and fair and -bright. When but a last £5 was between myself and her people <i>re</i> -fortune, her very words to me were: ‘Wisha, God help me! if I’m worth -anything, I ought to be worth that £5.’ That expression of hers stung me -to the quick, so openly, frankly, and innocently uttered, and ‘I’m -getting other accounts, but would not marry anyone but you.’ Well, the -end was in that one night, sitting beside her in her father’s house, the -feeling of pity changed to a warmer feeling, thank God; for if it -didn’t, I would rather live and die single than marry against my will. -‘’Tisn’t riches makes happiness.’ I’ve read somewhere that when want -comes in at the door, love flies out of the window; but I don’t believe -it—I don’t believe it. And my brother is kind; he will be giving me -time to pay the balance, £30, by degrees.”</p> - -<p>The Irish are notoriously brave, yet they have a fear of public opinion -unknown to an Englishman. Underneath their charmingly gay and open -manner there is a self-consciousness, a self-mistrust. For all their -keen sense of humour, they cannot bear laughter directed at themselves. -They dread to be made absurd more than anything else in this world.<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> -They are responsive and sympathetic, yet too witty not to be somewhat -malicious; and they are warm and generous, yet not always so reliably -kind as a duller, slower people. They are irritable, so they are less -tolerant of children and animals, although they make excellent nurses, -as I have said. They have no tolerance at all for slowness and -stupidity, very little for ugliness or want of charm. They adore beauty, -though it doesn’t count for much in their most intimate relations; and -it is not, therefore, the paradise of plain women.</p> - -<p>I have not touched on a hundredth part of their contradictoriness, which -makes the Irish so eternally unexpected and interesting. They can be, as -they say themselves, “contrairy” when they choose—and they often -choose. Yet, when all is said and done, they are the pleasantest people -in the world. Nor is their pleasantness insincere. They are pleasant -because they feel pleasant; and an Irish man or woman will pay you an -amazing, fresh, audacious compliment which an Englishman might feel, but -would rather die than say.</p> - -<p>Did I say that the Celt was gay and melancholy? He is exquisitely gay -and most profoundly melancholy. He is in touch with the other world, and -yet desperately afraid of it, or of the passage to it,<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a> being a creature -of fine nerves and apprehension; whence he will joke about death to -cover up his real repugnance, and yet hold the key to heaven as securely -as though it were the other side of the wall, with a lonesome passage to -be traversed. It is the lonesomeness of death which makes it terrible to -the gregarious Irishman, although he knows that the other side of the -wall the kinsmen and friends and neighbours await him, friendly and -loving as of old.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V<br /><br /> -<small>SOUTH OF DUBLIN</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">I<small>F</small> you go down from Dublin by the wonderful coast-line or through the -beautiful country inland which runs by the base of the mountains, you -will come upon beautiful scenery, and find a population not at all -characteristically Irish. The beauty of Wicklow, its wonderful woods, -its deep glens, its placid waters, its glorious mountains, is only less -than the beauty of Killarney, which is an earthly paradise. But in -Wicklow, in Wexford, in Waterford, the people’s blood is mixed. -Sometimes it is Celt upon Celt, the Welsh Celt upon the Irish. There are -charming people in Wicklow and Wexford and Waterford, but<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> to those -counties belongs also what I call the cynical Irishman—the Irishman -without charm of manner, the “independent” Irishman, who will not take -off his hat to rank or age or sex; yet he is Irish enough in the core of -him. And Wicklow and Wexford, with Kildare and part of Meath, were the -scenes of the Rebellion in 1798. Perhaps the memory of those days helps -to make the Irishman of the south-east corner of Ireland what he is, and -that is often something very unlike the gracious Irishman of the South -and West. He has his resentments. I have heard an Irishman say: “A -Wexford man will never look at a Tipperary man, because Tipperary didn’t -rise in the Rebellion.” The Rebellion, which was hatched in the North by -Ulster Presbyterians, broke out, after all, in Wexford, and on a -religious, and a Catholic, cause of quarrel. There could have been -nothing farther from the thoughts of the leaders of the united Irishmen -than to make a religious war, but that was what the Rebellion of 1798 -turned out to be—a religious war; a war between Catholic and -Protestant, precipitated not by English intriguers, say those who know -well, but by outrageous insults to the Catholic altars, led in many -cases by priests on the rebel side, foredoomed to failure in spite of -the desperate courage of the peasantry who for a time<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> swept all before -them. One always thinks of Wexford and the Rebellion simultaneously. It -was a time of cynical contrasts. Think of the poor peasants, maddened by -outrages to their altars, led by their priests, carrying on the -Rebellion planned by Protestants of the North—by leaders deeply imbued -with the French revolutionary spirit, which was certainly not Christian! -Think of the Western peasants, when Humbert and his men landed at -Killala, hailing those good comrades of the Revolution as -fellow-Catholics, coming to meet them decked out in religious emblems! -One of the strangest and most cynical of these contrasts was the fact -that while the peasant army fought desperately at New Ross, where they -all but carried the day, on the other side of the Barrow River men were -ploughing peacefully in their fields, because it was Wexford that was up -and not their county. I suppose it is the clan system which -differentiates Irishmen by their counties and their towns. Dublin is -heterogeneous, perhaps. It has, at all events, few distinguishing -characteristics, whereas Cork and Waterford men are as widely apart -almost as though they were of different nationalities; and both are -agreed in despising Dublin, although Dublin has made history in the last -hundred years—national history—more than either.<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 384px;"> -<a href="images/ill_011_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -<br /> -<img src="images/ill_011_sml.jpg" -class="bord" width="384" height="526" alt="A WICKLOW GLEN." title="A WICKLOW GLEN." /></a> -<p class="caption">A WICKLOW GLEN.</p> -</div> - -<p>The men who were the first begetters of the Rebellion, and the men who -saved Ireland for the English Crown, were alike men of Anglo-Irish -blood. The Rebellion was put down by the Irish yeomanry, as English -statesmen had to acknowledge, however little they liked the methods of -their allies. The yeomanry did not make war with rose-water, any more -than they precipitated the Rebellion by gentle methods. It is a bloody -and brutal chapter of Irish history, and the memories of it accounted -for the religious animosities which I remember in my youth, which are -fading out as the memories of the Rebellion are fading. The year 1798 -has ceased to be a landmark in Irish life. When I was a child, there yet -lived people who could tell at first hand or second hand of the terrible -happenings of those days. People used to say, fixing an age: “He was -born the year of the Rebellion.” Now all that has passed away. Even in -those times it was becoming more customary to date events by the year of -the Big Wind, 1839. Now, with the establishment of parish -registers—which did not come in in Ireland till the sixties—and the -spread of newspapers and cheap knowledge generally, such landmarks are -no longer required; and the Big Wind of 1903 has wiped out the memory of -its predecessor.<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a></p> - -<p>In the mountains of Wicklow the insurgents of those days found their -refuges and their fastnesses and their graves. I remember having seen -somewhere near Roundwood, in the Wicklow Mountains, in the midst of a -ploughed field a long strip of greenest grass covering the grave of many -rebels. The plough had gone round it ever since then, but not a sod of -it had been turned up; it had remained inviolate.</p> - -<p>A great deal of Irish history gathers round the Rebellion—<i>the</i> -Rebellion, the Irish yet call it, as though there had never been any -other. The men who made it were literary men, in a more vital sense than -the men of ‘48, who were also literary. Two books of that day stand out -pre-eminently—Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s “Life and Letters,” edited by -Thomas Moore, and the Journal of Theobald Wolfe Tone. Lord Edward had an -exquisite style. His letters are the frank revelation of a beautiful and -gallant and innocent mind and heart. Without deliberation, without -knowledge, his family letters achieved the highest art. They are -immortal, imperishable things.</p> - -<p>Then Tone’s Journal is as remarkable a human document. Tone swaggers -through these pages better than any hero of romance. Life, after all, -is<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a> the greatest artist, and one does not say, “Here is a true Dumas -hero! Here is a true Stevenson hero!” For Life is better than her -children.</p> - -<p>Nearly all the United Irish leaders left memoirs or journals behind -them. There was, perhaps, something of the self-consciousness of the -French Revolution in this keeping a journal in the face of battle. -Anyhow, we are grateful to Holt, to Teeling, to Cloney, for keeping -alive for us those days and those men.</p> - -<p>In Lady Sarah Napier’s letters you also get most vivid glimpses of the -Rebellion—as, indeed, you do in the letters of the whole Leinster -family. Mary Ledbetter, that gentle Quakeress, of Ballitore, has told -her experiences of the Rebellion in Kildare; there is Bishop Stock’s -Narrative of the French landing at Killala and those days in which he -entertained willy-nilly the French leaders and found them the most -considerate of guests. In fact, there is a whole library of Rebellion -literature.</p> - -<p>I ask pardon for treating Wicklow and Wexford as though they were the -theatre of ‘98, and nothing more; but, indeed, in the story of Wexford -the Rebellion stands up like White Mountain and Mount Leinster, and one -finds little else to say.<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI<br /><br /> -<small>THE NORTH</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">B<small>ETWEEN</small> Dublin and Newry there is not much to see or to remember except -that Cromwell sacked Drogheda with a thoroughness, and that at Dundalk -Edward Bruce, the brother of Robert, was crowned King of Ireland. The -Mourne Mountains and Carlingford Lough bring us back to characteristic -Ireland. Beyond them one enters the manufacturing districts—that -north-east corner of Ireland which no Celt looks upon as Ireland at all. -In speech, in character, in looks, the people become Scotch and not -Irish. One has crossed the border and Celtic Ireland is left behind.</p> - -<p>In the north-east corner of Ulster they are all busy money-making and -money-getting. The North of Ireland has admirable qualities—thrift, -energy, industry, ambition, capacity. In other parts of Ireland you find -these qualities here and there; they are mainly, but not altogether, the -qualities of the Anglo-Irish—that is, in so far as they are a business -asset. The Celt has no real capacity for money-making,<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a> though at the -wrong end of the virtue of thrift—that dreariest of the virtues—he may -accumulate it. He will put an enormous deal of energy into something -that does not pay him in hard cash. Honorary positions are greedily -sought after by the Irish everywhere. They will run any number of -societies for nothing, will do the business of Leagues, of the Poor Law, -of the County Councils. The energy shown by the Celt in doing the public -business would enrich him if applied to his own. He has a large capacity -for public business, and an extraordinary readiness to do it, which is, -I suppose, the reason why he does the public business of America, while -non-Irish Americans sit by and grumble at his way of doing it.</p> - -<p>In Ireland and in America he does hard manual labour, but somehow the -genius of finance is not his. His hard work is on the land in one form -or another. Now and again he may build up quite a considerable fortune -in petty shop-keeping—the big traders are nearly all Anglo-Irish—but -when he does, his sons become professional men and the business ceases -to be. One can hardly imagine in Celtic Ireland what occurs every day in -English business life, where the son of a successful business man may be -a public-school man, a University man, and have had all the advantages<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> -of wealth, and yet succeed his father in the business. And his son -succeeds him, and so on. This, in Celtic Ireland, would, I fear, be -taken as indicative of a pettifogging spirit. The Anglo-Irishman, on the -contrary, succeeds to the business his father has made, even though he -be a University man; and the Grafton Street shops are often run by men -who are graduates and honourmen of the University, and yet do not -disdain to be seen in their shops.</p> - -<p>There is nothing Irish about North-East Ulster except the country -itself, which does not materially alter its character, because it is -studded with factories. From the streets of Belfast you see the Cave -Hill, as from easy-going Dublin you see the Dublin Mountains. Perhaps -there is something of exuberance caught from the Celt in the -paraphernalia and ceremonial of the Orange Society. Who can say how much -of poetry it may not mean, that crowded hour of glorious life which -comes about mid-July, when men who have worked side by side in amity all -the rest of the year suddenly become bitter enemies, when the wearing of -an Orange sash and the sight of an Orange lily stir a fever in the -blood?</p> - -<p>Apart from such occasions, they are given in Belfast to minding their -own business, and minding it<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a> very well. The Belfast man is very shrewd, -but he has a great simplicity withal. He has none of the uppish notions -of the Celt, and though he makes money he does not make it to display -it. He is blunt and brusque in his speech and manner, and so not unlike -his Lancashire brother. He lives simply. In public matters he has the -priceless advantage, in Ireland, of knowing what he wants; and he -usually gets it, unless his demands be too outrageous. He is a hard man -of business, but in his human relationships he is kind and sincere. I -have known exiles of Dublin who went to Belfast in tears, and for the -first months or years of their residence were always sighing after -Dublin. When, however, they came to know the man of the North—he takes -a good deal of knowing—nothing would induce them to return to Dublin.</p> - -<p>Like his Scottish progenitors, he stands by the Bible. There is as much -Bible-reading in the fine red-brick mansions of Belfast as there is in -Scotland. He does not produce literature. The more artistic parts of -Ireland look down on him as one to whom “boetry and bainting” are as -unacceptable as they were to the Second George. But he encourages solid -learning, and he endows seats of learning as generously as does the -American millionaire, who in<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> this respect offers an example to his -English brother. The Belfast man has the Scottish love of education. He -has many of the homespun Scottish virtues, and much less than the -Scottish love of money.</p> - -<p>At the very gates of Belfast you find the Irish country. The Glens of -Antrim are as Irish as Limerick or Clare. They are very beautiful, and -not much exploited. There is also the Giant’s Causeway to see. The -legend of its construction is that Finn, the Irish giant, invited a -Scotch giant over to fight him, and generously provided the Causeway for -him to cross by; but he played a nasty trick on him, for he pretended to -the Scottish giant when he came that he was his own little boy. “If you -are the little son, what must your father be?” the Scottish giant is -reported to have said before taking to his heels.</p> - -<p>I do not believe the story. I believe that the Scottish giant came and -stayed. You see his children all over North-East Ulster.</p> - -<p>There are women-poets whom one associates with the North—Moira O’Neill -of the Glens, and Alice Milligan, a daughter of Belfast. They are both</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Kindly Irish of the Irish<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Neither Saxon nor Italian,”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">nor Scottish.<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 521px;"> -<a href="images/ill_012_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -<br /> -<img src="images/ill_012_sml.jpg" -class="bord" width="521" height="385" alt="THE RIVER LEE." title="THE RIVER LEE." /></a> -<p class="caption">THE RIVER LEE.</p> -</div> - -<h2><a name="Cork_and_Thereabouts" id="Cork_and_Thereabouts"></a>Cork and Thereabouts</h2> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII<br /><br /> -<small>CORK AND THEREABOUTS</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">T<small>HERE</small> is something of rich and racy association about the very name of -Cork—something that suggests joviality, wit, a warm southern -temperament. Corkmen only out of all Ireland hold together. The rest of -Ireland may be fissiparous, disunited. Corkmen cleave closer than -Scotsmen to one another, and to be a Corkman is to another Corkman a -cloak that covers a multitude of sins. A Corkman in Dublin will have -friends in all sorts of unlikely places. What matter though a man be in -a humble rank of life—a cabman, a policeman, a postman, even a -scavenger! So he be a Corkman, he has an appeal to the heart of his -brother Corkman. It is a Freemasonry. There is nothing else like it in -Ireland, nor anywhere else, so far as I know; for the Scotsman coming -into England may draw other Scotsmen to follow him, but in the Scotch -sticking together there is less real affection than there is in the case -of the Corkman. To be able to exchange memories of the Mardyke, of the -River Lee, of Shandon and<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> Sunday’s Well, is to make Corkmen brothers -all the world over. Cork looks on itself as the real capital of Ireland, -and has always its eye on a day when Dublin will be dispossessed.</p> - -<p>It has a most excellent situation on the River Lee, and is surrounded by -all manner of natural beauties. There is plenty of business stirring, -and there is a good deal of opulence in Cork, where, Corkmen being men -of taste, they display it in their houses, their way of living and on -the persons of their beautiful women, with the irresistible Cork brogue -to crown all their other charms. Cork is nothing if not artistic. She -has produced artists of all descriptions—poets, painters, great -newspaper men (was not Delane of the <i>Times</i> a Corkman?), musicians, -sculptors, orators, preachers. The words roll off the Cork tongue sweet -as honey. There is something extraordinarily rich, gay and alluring -about Cork and Cork people. They were always audacious. They set up -Perkin Warbeck as a Pretender to the English Crown, clad him in silks -and velvets, and demanded his acknowledgment at the hands of the Lord -Deputy. I do not know that as a city Cork took a great part in any of -the many Irish rebellions. It would make a city of diplomatists because -of its honeyed tongue. Queen Elizabeth, they say,<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a> was the first one to -talk of Blarney, which is a Cork commodity. There was a certain -McCarthy, Lord of Blarney, who would not come in and submit to the -Queen’s forces, though week by week he promised to come and kept the -Queen’s anger off by cozening words. “It is all Blarney,” the Queen came -to say of fair words that meant nothing; but that is a derivation I -somewhat suspect. I do not know what Cork was doing in the Desmond -Rebellion, of the results of which Spenser has left us so harrowing a -description. She was perhaps enjoying herself after the fashion of that -day. Spenser married a Cork-woman, and has enshrined her in the -“Epithalamion,” the most beautiful love-poem in the English language. -Cork has its links with the Golden Age of England, for Raleigh was at -Youghal, and Spenser at Kilcolman close by; and in Raleigh’s house at -Youghal they show you the oriel in which Spenser sat and read the -“Faërie Queene” to his host, the Shepherd of the Ocean. Youghal and all -that part of the country round about Cork is steeped in traditions and -memories. St. Mary’s Collegiate Church at Youghal might be in an English -town, and there are malls and promenades in those parts, with high, -crumbling houses, which suggest the English civilization of the Middle -Ages and not the Irish civilization<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a> before the Norman Conquest. The -Normans were great church-builders, but of their churches, as in the -case of the old Abbey of St. Francis at Youghal, there remain now only -ruins—a naked gable standing up amid a wilderness of graves, buried in -coarse grasses, which, when I was there, had a greater decency towards -the dead than had the living. For it is strange that the Irish, who love -the dead, have little piety towards their graves.</p> - -<p>From Youghal Sir Walter Raleigh sailed away to Virginia on his last -disastrous voyage. Spenser had gone back to London earlier than that, -heart-broken by the loss of his little son, who was burnt to death in a -fire at Kilcolman Castle. Raleigh and Spenser had received grants of the -lands of the attainted Desmonds. Very little profit either had of them, -and Raleigh’s lands passed to the Earl of Cork, commonly called “the -Great,” whose flaring chapel destroys the quiet of St. Mary’s dim aisles -and chancel. Never was there so worldly a monument as this of Robert -Boyle, his mother, his two wives, and his nine children, all in -hideously painted and decorated Italian marble. The fierce eyes of the -great Earl are something to remember with dismay.</p> - -<p>I recall the evidence the great Earl adduced to prove that Sir Walter -did really hand him over his Irish<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a> estates on the eve of that journey -to Virginia—for a small consideration of money and plenishing for the -expedition. “If you do not take the lands, some Scot will have them,” -said, or is reported to have said, Sir Walter, which reminds us that -Jamie had succeeded Elizabeth, and was already transplanting his -Scots—Jamie, who was to keep so brilliant a bird as Sir Walter in so -squalid a cage as a prison till he made up his mind to send him to the -block. Youghal is haunted by Sir Walter and Spenser. My memories of the -place in a windy autumn are brightened by sudden gleams, as of splendid -attire and golden olive faces with the Elizabethan ruff and the -Elizabethan pointed beard.</p> - -<p>The Blackwater, which runs through Youghal, dropping into the sea at -that point, had at Rhincrew Point its House of Knights Templars. From -Youghal they also sailed away in search of El Dorado, but a heavenly -one. May they have found it!</p> - -<p>And also there is Templemichael, of the Earls of Desmond, the southern -branch of the Fitzgeralds, which Cromwell battered down for “dire -insolence.” There is a story of a Desmond lord who was buried across the -water at Ardmore, the holy place of St. Declan, where there is a -pilgrimage and a patronage to this day. But holy as Ardmore was and is, -Earl<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a> Gerald could not sleep there. He wanted to be back at -Templemichael, where his young wife lay in her lonely grave. So that -night after night there came a terrible cry, “Garault Arointha! Garault -Arointha!”—that is to say: “Give Gerald a ferry!” So at last some of -his faithful followers rowed over by night, took up the body of Earl -Gerald, and carried it back to Templemichael and to the dead Countess’s -side. And after that Earl Gerald slept in peace.</p> - -<p>My memory of Youghal in that far-away windy autumn is compounded of -three or four things. There was purple wistaria hanging in great masses -over the walls of the college which was the foundation of one of the -Desmonds. There was provision there for so many singing men—twenty, was -it?—who were to sing in St. Mary’s choir. The great Earl of Cork had a -great maw, one that never suffered from indigestion. The revenues of St. -Mary’s College went the same way as Sir Walter’s slice of the Desmond -lands. Then, again, in a little shop-window of the town, there was a -glorious show of fruit—great scarlet-skinned tomatoes, gorgeous plums -and pears and apples, which reminded one that Raleigh had planted -orchards at Affane, on the Blackwater. As a rule, fruit is sadly to seek -in a small Irish town, although Cork produces some of<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a> the finest fruit -I have ever seen. Then, again, there was a room in Raleigh’s house, -Myrtle Grove, unlit save for the flicker of firelight, the darkness all -about us, and an old voice bidding us to notice the earthy smell, which -was supposed to enter the room from a subterranean passage that led to -St. Mary’s.</p> - -<p>Again, I have another widely different memory. It is of a fine, tall, -beautifully-complexioned girl standing behind the counter of a draper’s -shop, her shining red-golden head showing against a background of little -plaid shawls and kerchiefs, while she lamented in her wailing southern -brogue the fact that no one could hope to get married in Youghal, unless -one had £300 to buy an old “widda-man”; and they were all the men that -were going.</p> - -<p>I like to get back from Youghal and its ghosts, and Rosanna, who never -thought of rebelling against the marriage customs of her forbears, to -cheerful Cork of the living and not the dead, with her tramcars, her -jingles—the curious covered car which takes the place of the outside -car in other Irish towns—her citizens laughing and button-holing each -other with a greater gaiety than the Dubliners; her excellent shops, her -beautiful girls promenading Patrick Street, her club-houses, her -churches, her Queen’s College, and all the rest of it, down to her<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> -river with its busy steamers. Cork’s citizens live outside her gates, at -Monkstown, at Blackrock, at Glenbrook; and the busy steamers carry them -to and fro by the loveliest of waterways. “Are the steamers punctual?” I -asked a Cork friend. “Is it punctual?” repeated he. “They’re the most -punctual things in Ireland, for they always get in before their time.”</p> - -<p>Father Mathew is one of Cork’s memories; Father Prout is another; Dr. -Maginn is another. But the list of Cork’s worthies is a long one, and I -shall not enter upon it here.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 519px;"> -<a href="images/ill_013_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -<br /> -<img src="images/ill_013_sml.jpg" -class="bord" width="519" height="396" alt="RALEIGH’S HOUSE, MYRTLE GROVE." title="RALEIGH’S HOUSE, MYRTLE GROVE." /></a> -<p class="caption">RALEIGH’S HOUSE, MYRTLE GROVE.</p> -</div> - -<p>Cork has the most enervating climate for one who comes to it from more -northern latitudes. It is always soft and warm, and often wet. “Good -heavens!” said John Mitchel, when he came back from twenty years or so -of Australia, gliding in by Spike Island in that same silver mist of -rain in which he had gone out, “isn’t that shower over yet?” The flowers -are wonderful in Cork, as well as the fruit. I have seen the suburban -gardens of Corkmen a luxuriance of vivid, closely packed, overflowing -blossom. Myrtles and fuchsias grow in the open air. There are hedges of -fuchsias at Killarney. There are hydrangeas also; but the same is true -of Dublin and its precincts. No one coming in from outside has energy to -do anything<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a> in Cork. But the Corkman lacks nothing of energy, nothing -of the joy of life. He is a keen business man, and there is plenty of -industrial enterprise. He is interested in the affairs of the world at -large and of Cork in particular. He has his enthusiasms. He is a -tremendous politician, and does not mind being on the losing side so -long as it is the right one. He is a sportsman and a bit of a gambler; -he makes love and is a good friend. The place is full of wit and gaiety -and humour. His standard of living when he has money, or ought to have -it, is an unusually high one for Ireland. Some of those successful -merchants live, I am told, like merchant princes. He is lavish and -generous, and fond of display—altogether a rich, abundant, -highly-coloured character. He lives in an atmosphere of incessant wit -and humour. Hardly a man in Cork but has his nickname. “There goes Billy -Boulevard,” you hear, and you are told that the gentleman so designated -desired to embellish Patrick Street with trees. But it was in Dublin -that they called one who had made his money in pneumatic tyres, and was -exalted above his humbler neighbours, “Lord Tyre and Side-on.<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a>”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br /><br /> -<small>GALWAY</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">G<small>ALWAY</small> is so synonymous with racy Irish life that a peep at Ireland must -be incomplete unless it includes a peep at Galway. It is full of the -strangest monuments of the past. It was once a town of the Irishry, in -the O’Flaherty country. But with the Norman Conquest there came in that -group of Anglo-Norman families known as the Tribes, who in course of -time went the way of all their compeers, becoming more Irish than the -Irish. “Lord!” said Edmund Spenser, “how quickly doth that country alter -men’s natures!” The Tribes were, and are—for happily there are still -the Tribes of Galway—thirteen, viz.: Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, -D’Arcy, Font, French, Joyce, Kirwan, Lynch, Martin, Morris, and -Skerrett. These Tribes became responsible in time for so much of the -wild and picturesque life of the Irish gentry of the eighteenth -century—the duelling, the drinking, the racing, the gambling, the -general devil-may-care life—that Galway looms more largely, perhaps, -than any town in the social history of Ireland.<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> Galway drew up a code -for duellists known as the Galway Code; and in the irresponsible life of -the eighteenth century, such as you find in Miss Edgeworth’s “Castle -Rackrent” and in Lever’s novels, the life which the Encumbered Estates -Act put a period to, the names of the Tribes figure oftener than more -Celtic names. For the picturesque wildness of Irish life was the -wildness of the settlers rather than the wildness of the native Irish.</p> - -<p>However, in the great days of Galway’s trade with Spain and other -continental ports, traces of which are scattered all over the old ruined -city, which is as much Spanish as it is Irish, the Tribes were just -merchant princes, not anticipating the time when, <i>more Hibernico</i>, they -should fling trade to the winds and become the maddest crew of -dare-devils known in the social life of any country. And here I find, in -the record of the duelling and drinking days, traces and indications of -the English descent of the roysterers. For certainly there was a lack of -humour in the actors, though none for the spectator; there was a -solemnity—not always a drunken solemnity—in the way their pranks were -performed that was not Celtic; for the Celt has a terrible sense of the -ridiculous. Doubtless it was from his Anglo-Irish betters that the Celt -derived the habit of “trailing his coat<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a>” through a fair when he was -spoiling for a fight, though, to do him justice, he practised it only -when he was drunk. The Anglo-Irish duellists inaugurated the custom. -When on no pretext could they find a friend or neighbour to kill or be -killed by, they went out and “trailed the coat,” like the gentleman who -rode on a tailless horse, with his face to the crupper, and, seeing an -unwary stranger smile, immediately challenged him, and rode home in huge -delight to look to his pistols. They were extremely solemn over their -pranks. One wonders how often the Celtic servants had a smile behind -their hand at such strange goings-on of their masters, which would not -have been possible to the self-conscious Celt.</p> - -<p>Over one of the gates of Galway was the pious legend, “From the -ferocious O’Flaherties, good Lord deliver us!” I have heard of other -inscriptions referring to other Irish septs over the remaining gates of -the town, but those I think are apocryphal. The fact remains that the -Tribes, having seized the town of the Irish after their rapacious Norman -manner, were obliged to wall it against the O’Flaherties, and doubtless -often slept ill at night because of the wild Irish battering at their -gates, as did their brothers of the English pale up in Dublin.<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a></p> - -<p>Galway would at that time have been well worth sacking. A traveller of -the early seventeenth century reports: “The merchants of Galway are rich -and great adventurers at sea: their commonalitie is composed of the -descendants of the ancient English families of the towne: and rairlie -admit of any new English among them, and never of any of the Irish; they -keep good hospitalitie and are kind to strangers, and in their manner of -entertainment and in fashioninge and apparellynge themselves and their -wives do most preserve the ancient manners and state of annie towne that -ever I saw.”</p> - -<p>They had their enactments against the Irish, including the MacWilliam -Burkes, who had gone over to the Irish, bag and baggage:</p> - -<p>“That none of the towne buy cattle out of the country but only of true -men.</p> - -<p>“That no man of the towne shall sell galley, bote or barque to an -Irishman.</p> - -<p>“That no person shall give or sell to the Irish any munition as -hand-povins, calivres, poulter, leade, nor salt-peter, nor yet large -bowes, cross-bowes, cross-bowe strings, nor yearne to make the same, nor -any kind of weapon on payn to forfayt the same and an hundred -shyllinges.<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a></p> - -<p>“If anie man being an Irishman to brag and boste upon the towne, to -forfayt 12 pence.</p> - -<p>“That no man of this towne shall ostle or receive into their house at -Christmasse or Easter nor no feast elles, anny of the Burkes -MacWilliams, the Kellies, nor no septs elles, without the licence of the -Maior and Council on payn to forfayt £5. That neither O’ ne Mac shall -strutt or swagger through the streets of Galway.”</p> - -<p>You still find traces of the commerce of the Tribes with Spain, not only -in the old Spanish buildings of the town, but in the black Spanish eyes -and hair of the people. I remember to have been struck in Donegal by a -dignity, a loftiness of bearing, as well as by a height and stateliness -of the peasant people that made one murmur “Spanish” to one’s own ear.</p> - -<p>One of the sights of Galway is the ruins of the house from the window of -which James Lynch Fitz Stephen, a Chief Magistrate of Galway in 1493, -hanged his only son for murder with his own hand, lest the townspeople -should rescue him. The house is called The Cross Bones nowadays, and is -situated most appropriately in Dead-Man’s Lane. There remains but an old -wall, with a couple of doorways having the pointed Spanish arches and -some ornate<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> window-spaces above. There is a tablet on the wall, bearing -a skull and cross-bones, with the inscription:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">“Remember Deathe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Vaniti of vanitis, all is but vaniti.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Some people believe that this Lynch is the “onlie begetter” of Lynch -Law. This, however, I do not believe, and I think it more likely to have -been derived from a Lynch of the mining-camps in Southern California, -who was the first to promulgate and put in practice the wild justice of -execution without judge or jury. Anyhow, I cannot see that the example -of James Lynch FitzStephen was an admirable one, and I do not believe -the legend that he died heart-broken as a result of his own stern sense -of justice.</p> - -<p>The palmy days of the Tribes were over with the Reformation, for they -did not cease to be Catholics, and so were in no great favour with the -predominant partner. Galway also stood for the King against the -Parliament, was besieged and taken by the Parliamentary soldiers under -Ludlow, who stabled his horses, according to report, in St. Nicholas’s -Cathedral. After that Galway’s great prosperity as a trading centre -passed away, and the Tribes scattered among the ferocious O’Flaherties -and others of their sort and became country gentlemen, with a<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a> noble -contempt for trade. The situation of Galway, on its magnificent Bay, -still cries out for commerce. The spectacle of Galway as a port of call -for American steamers has dangled before the eyes of the Galwegians for -a long time without being realized, although they made preparations for -it long ago, by building a hotel that would house a <i>Mauretania</i>-load of -travellers.</p> - -<p>Only the other day I listened to a Galway Tribesman conversing with -someone who had lived in Galway, and who asked after the old places and -persons. “What’s become of So-and-so?” “He’s just the same as ever; not -a bit of change in him. He comes home every night strapped to the -outside car to keep him from falling off.” “And what’s become of -So-and-so?” “Oh, he’s done very well for himself. His father says, -‘Mac’s all right; he’s got the run of a kitchen in Yorkshire,’ meaning -that he married an English heiress.”</p> - -<p>This conversation made me feel that to some extent Galway stands where -it did.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 546px;"> -<a href="images/ill_014_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -<br /> -<img src="images/ill_014_sml.jpg" -class="bord" width="546" height="353" alt="GLENCOLUMBKILLE HEAD. PAGE 70." title="GLENCOLUMBKILLE HEAD. PAGE 70." /></a> -<p class="caption">GLENCOLUMBKILLE HEAD. <i><a href="#page_070">PAGE 70</a></i>.</p> -</div> - -<p>The Claddagh fishing village by Galway is something not to be missed. It -keeps itself to itself, with a reserve Celtic or Spanish or anything -else you like, but not English. It used to be ruled by its own King, who -was just a fisherman like his subjects,<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> and was not exalted in his -manner of living by his royal state. He was chosen for his governing -powers and his mental and moral qualities, and his subjects were ruled -by him with a despotism that was never anything but fatherly. They -intermarried, too, among themselves—I do not know if this usage -survives—and their ring of betrothal, handed on from one generation to -another, has a design of two hands holding up a heart. At the Claddagh -they still have the Blessing of the Sea, but they will not make a show -of it, and even the Galway people are kept in ignorance of the time when -the ceremony takes place.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX<br /><br /> -<small>DONEGAL OF THE STRANGERS</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">I<small>T</small> once fell to my lot to make a hasty scamper through Donegal from end -to end; that is to say, as far as possible, I made the circuit of the -county, beginning with Ballyshannon, following the coast-line, with -divergences, from Donegal to Gweedore, going round by Bloody Foreland, -by Falcarragh and Dunfanaghy, and ending up by way of Letterkenny at<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> -Ballyshannon again. I took ten or twelve days to do it—perhaps a -fortnight—staying each night at an inn. To Gweedore I devoted the best -portion of a week. Now, in that scamper I had a very characteristic peep -at Ireland. I missed, indeed, the wild gaiety of the South. Donegal -people are somewhat sorrowful. But I found plenty of types and racy life -nevertheless.</p> - -<p>It is a good many years ago now; and travelling in Donegal has been -simplified since then by the light railways with which the names of Mr. -Arthur Balfour and Mr. Gerald Balfour are gratefully associated. When I -was there I drove through the country, only taking the train from -Letterkenny to Ballyshannon on my return journey; and it was an -excellent, though somewhat expensive, way of seeing the country. -However, the hospitality was so wonderful that one only slept and -breakfasted in one’s hotel. For the rest, the kind priests were only too -eager to give hospitality to myself and my companion.</p> - -<p>At Ballyshannon we stayed a night in one of those enormous old hotels -with a maze of winding passages, which suggest to one in the dead waste -and middle of the night that in case of a fire one never could get out. -The next day we came upon the first of the priests, who carried us off -to see everything<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> that could be seen of Ballyshannon, including a visit -to Abbey Assaroe, which we knew already in William Allingham’s poetry. -To the grief of these kind friends of ours, we insisted on going off the -same afternoon to Donegal town, to which we were driven by “Wullie”—the -first “Wullie”—a red-haired, taciturn youth, who suspected us of -laughing at him and was closer than an oyster. Your English man or woman -is the truly expansive person. When you want to get at anything from an -Irishman you’ve got to sit down and wait for the charmed moment when his -suspicion of you is put to sleep. Dr. Douglas Hyde got his Religious -Songs and Love Songs of Connacht by sitting over the turf fire in a -cabin, taking a “shaugh” of the pipe and offering a fill of it, passing -round a flask of poteen, perhaps. It might be hours, and it might be -days, and it might be weeks before you broke down the barrier of -reserve, well worth the breaking-down if you have “worlds enough and -time.” You can’t travel twenty miles in an English third-class carriage -before you have the intimate confidence of your fellow-passengers. You -are told which relative died of cancer, with harrowing details, which is -in a madhouse, and which in gaol; for the plain English people are the -most unreserved in the world, while<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> the Irish are the most reticent. -And if you win a flow of talk from the Irish peasants, be sure they are -talking round what they have to tell by way of leading you away from it; -for an Irishman uses language to conceal his thoughts.</p> - -<p>We hadn’t “worlds enough and time” for “Wullie.” His lips were -tight-locked from Ballyshannon to Donegal.</p> - -<p>The next day we saw what was to be seen of the Castle, under the -guidance of the parish priest, whom we met walking in the Diamond. We -introduced ourselves to him. He was a delightful, humorous, stately, -kindly old man, and he looked at us when he met us with an eye that -asked: “Who are you and what is your business in Donegal?” It is a way -the priests have in the remote parts of Ireland, where they are -everything to their flocks. Being reassured, he gave his day to our -entertainment, taking us to see some of his parishioners when he had -shown us all the town contained of interest.</p> - -<p>Killybegs I remember as a beautiful bay, big enough to take in the whole -English fleet. The next day we went on to Kilcar, where we found our -third priest, who lived in a delightfully clean little cabin with a clay -floor. His housekeeper was barefooted, but he had dainty table -appointments. I remember<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a> that he had very good china, and he explained -that his mother had given it to him. He was the son of rather wealthy -people. We had a meal of fish, with a little fruit to follow; and while -we ate it a messenger was out prospecting for the loan of an outside car -for the priest. Sure enough, by the time we had finished the meal the -car was at the door, and our host carried us off to see the Caves of -Muckross, some six miles away. Incidentally, we saw Bunglass, that -magnificent cliff-face where Slieve League drops into the sea. I -remember a visit we paid to a cottage where a father sat at the loom -weaving, the mother was carding wool, and a black-haired daughter was -sprigging muslin by the little narrow square window. A scarlet geranium -in the window seemed to be in her night-black hair, and her tears flowed -when our little priest spoke to her. He told us that her lover had -married a richer girl and gone to America. I can remember quite well -walking up a mountain road where the friendly little lambs came and -trotted a bit of the way with us, and the voice of the young priest as -he told us of the innocence of the people—“not a sin in it from year’s -end to year’s end,” for they were too poor to drink—and how his -ambition was to get away to the East End of London, where there was -something to do for a born fighter.<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a></p> - -<p>A night at the excellent hotel at Carrick and the next day we were at -Glencolumkille, that wild and lonely glen between the mountains and the -sea, with the majestic Glen Head standing out into the Atlantic. In the -Glen are twelve crosses of stone, where pilgrims make the stations in -honour of St. Columba or Columkille, the Dove of the Churches. Above -Lough Gartan, on Eithne’s Bed, he was born, and any who lie there shall -not have the pangs of home-sickness; wherefore many emigrants stretch -themselves upon that rocky couch before they cross “the Green Fields to -America.” The Glen is full of the noise and thunder of the waves, and -Slieve League lies superbly up in the sky, reminding one of Browning—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>At Glencolumkille we met the fourth of our priests—a tall, thin, -Spanish-looking youth, who came to meet us with a collie at his heels. -Glencolumkille is very lonesome. There is only an Irish-speaking peasant -population of the very poorest, and the nearest one with whom our priest -could exchange a word on his own level was some seven Irish miles away. -He gave us an impression of immense loneliness, although his joy at -having someone to entertain irradiated his melancholy, handsome face -with cheerfulness.<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a> He was rejoiced that by the greatest of good luck he -had a bit of meat for dinner, for fish is the staple food of the Glen. -He was very much interested in news from the great world, and produced -with some pride a copy of the <i>Daily Telegraph</i>, several days old, to -prove that he kept in touch with the world. He told us that he was the -youngest of a large family, and his home was as far away as Dublin. Over -nearly a score of years I have the most vivid impression of the lonely -figure, the dog at his heels, as we left Glencolumkille behind us. He -had made us free of his house and hospitality, and parted from us with -the utmost unwillingness.</p> - -<p>Ardara, Glenties, Dungloe—I think of them, little villages lying -amongst gorgeous mountains, and remember that in those gloomy and -frowning fastnesses the Irish were safe against Cromwell’s planters, -since what man who could choose, not being Irish, would desire to live -in such a place? A Donegal farm is something to remember. The one crop -the ground grows freely is stones—stones in millions, boulders as great -sometimes as a small house. There are glens that are nothing but stones -from end to end, about as promising ground as the Giant’s Causeway for a -farmer. In such places you may see a little field, the size of a -tablecloth, snatched<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a> from the aridity of Nature by the incredible -industry of man. Everywhere in Donegal man asks Nature for bread and she -gives him a stone, unless it be the harvest of the sea, which he -snatches from her at the price of his life, it may be.</p> - -<p>I saw Donegal in April, softened as much as might be by the wild April -showers and the bursts of April sunshine. The clouds and the mountains, -the cliffs and the sea—Slieve League, Errigal, Muckish, Bunglass, Horn -Head, the Glen Head, Tory Island—were all beautiful beyond telling, -with a wild and stormy magnificence of beauty. I try to imagine their -desolation in winter and fail to realize it.</p> - -<p>Ardara I remember by the beauty of Glengesh on an April day, with a -hundred streams running down its sides; and at Ardara we halted on -Sunday, and knelt in the gallery of the church, looking down at the -peasants kneeling in rows on the stone floor before the altar. The doors -were wide open, and birds wheeled in from the sunlight and out again -with flashing wings; and the air was exquisite, fresh and wild and -sweet.</p> - -<p>At Gweedore, as I have said, we tarried nearly a week, held there by the -hospitality of the parish priest, who would have us see everything -thoroughly. We stayed at an idyllic little inn, and were fed on the<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> -best and simplest fare: stirabout, made as only the Irish can make it; -home-made bread; delicious butter, new-laid eggs; little delicate -chickens, with green parsley sauce and boiled bacon, potatoes, and -cabbage, cooked as only the Irish can cook them; for in certain simple -dishes of their own the Irish cannot be beaten.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 543px;"> -<a href="images/ill_015_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -<br /> -<img src="images/ill_015_sml.jpg" -class="bord" width="543" height="352" alt="A DONEGAL HARVEST." title="A DONEGAL HARVEST." /></a> -<p class="caption">A DONEGAL HARVEST.</p> -</div> - -<p>There was a most picturesque waiting-maid, a shy little girl, as pretty -as a picture, who wore a pink cotton frock, and had pink bare feet -showing under it, who had the softest, most appealing of voices.</p> - -<p>At the inn our priest found us, sallying in with his great blackthorn in -his hand to see who were the strange visitors to the Glen. He was a -redoubtable priest—the Law of Gweedore, they called him—and he -sheltered his people as the hen sheltereth her chickens. The Glen was -exquisitely clean from end to end, though starveling poor. But the -priest saw to it that they did not starve.</p> - -<p>For four or five days, perhaps, we abode in this little inn, where the -Glen opens out to the sea. We visited the people in their cottages, -under the guidance of our redoubtable <i>padre</i>, and saw all there was to -be seen. His hospitality was unbounded, although at the time there was a -wide and bitter division in politics between us.<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a></p> - -<p>I shall not soon forget the manner of our going. We had come now almost -to the end of our journey, and it was desirable that we should return to -Dublin as quickly as possible. He wanted us to make the journey round by -Bloody Foreland, and we wanted to do it as shortly as possible, striking -inland to meet the mail-car for Letterkenny at, I think, Gortahork. But -we knew better than to say “No” to the Law of Gweedore; so we thought to -slip away early in the morning, and made our arrangements the last thing -at night, after leaving his hospitable roof.</p> - -<p>But the Law of Gweedore knew all that happened in Gweedore. A full hour -before we had appointed for being called we were called. His Reverence -had arranged our conveyance, and <i>paid for it</i>—paid also, I think, for -a luncheon-basket. Willy-nilly, we went round by Bloody Foreland and -visited the evicted tenants, crouching under scraws and twigs, in -shelters which suggested the caves of the earth-dwellers rather than -anything fit for man.</p> - -<p>Gortahork I remember as a place where we had a good meal of tea and hot -cakes and eggs, and other things thrown in, for a shilling. And I -remember also the long, long drive to Letterkenny—some forty miles it -was, I seem to remember, but shall not<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a> pledge myself to it lest I be -confuted—and how we dashed along the sides of precipices, we on one -side of the car, with our feet almost touching earth, the other side -high in air, being weighted only with empty parcel-post hampers, of -which Donegal needs no great supply; below us—far, far below—a valley -filled in with mighty stones and rocks. The pace was so fast that we -could hardly keep our seats, though well accustomed to that car which -the unlettered English tripper is apt to call “a jolting car”; and the -driver was quite unaware of our discomfort, assuring us with as much -jocularity as a Donegal man permits himself that the horses never were -known to stumble, and that, although an occasional English tourist did -fall off, he or she always “fell soft.”</p> - -<p>After all, when I look back to that scamper through Donegal sixteen -years ago, I remember the mountains and the priests. Monuments of a -beautiful hospitality, the priests for me mark the wild ways up and down -Donegal.<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X<br /><br /> -<small>IRISH TRAITS AND WAYS</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">A<small>N</small> English person in Ireland may find himself astray because he will -have no clue to the minds of the people. I once heard two English ladies -returning from an Irish trip say to each other across a -railway-carriage, otherwise full of Irish people, that the Irish all -told lies. This was a rash judgment and a harsh one; I do not know what -the occasion of it was. Sometimes the Irish, through their naturally -gracious manners, will say the thing that will please you best to hear -rather than the absolute truth by rule of thumb. There is the -well-known, well-founded complaint about Irish distances; a peasant will -tell you that you are three miles from a place when you are really -seven. Now, of course you may be misled by the difference between the -Irish and English mile; and thereby hangs a tale. The Irish or -Plantation measure was adopted by Cromwell’s planted English, so that -they might get a bigger slice of land than was intended for them. But if -you are told you have three Irish miles to go and find<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> that you have -seven, almost certainly the thought uppermost in your misinformant’s -mind was: “The crathur! Sure, he’ll think nothin’ of it if he believes -it’s only three miles; and the spring ’ud be taken out of him altogether -if he thought he’d seven weary miles before him yet. And, sure, by the -time he’s travelled the three miles he won’t be far off the seven.”</p> - -<p>The Irish mind, besides being very nimble, is subtle and complicated. It -may have gone off on an excursion before answering you which you in your -Anglo-Saxon plainness would never dream of; and your truth may not be -the Irish truth at all, and yet both of them be the genuine article.</p> - -<p>A very small Irish boy of my acquaintance, being rudely accused of -having told a lie, responded meekly: “I don’t think it were really a -lie; I think it were only an imagination.”</p> - -<p>“Are there any priests in the town?” you ask an Irishman; and he -replies, there being some half-dozen: “The streets are black with them.”</p> - -<p>“You can’t always depend on eggs, not if they comes in fresh from the -nest,” said an Irish servant to me, when some of the grocer’s “new-laid” -eggs had “popped” in the saucepan. The remark was<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> purely consolatory -and was not at all intended to convey that the hens laid stale eggs.</p> - -<p>The Irish “bull,” so-called, very often is the result of the -nimble-wittedness of the speaker. He has thought more than he has -expressed, and the bull implies a hiatus. “I’d better be a coward for -ten minutes than be dead all my life” is a famous example of an Irish -bull; but it only means “all the days of my natural life”; so much was -not expressed.</p> - -<p>My harsh critics of the London and North-Western express would doubtless -have found the soft, flattering ways of the Irish false and -hypocritical. One remembers the famous compliment, “No matter what age -you are, ma’am, you don’t look it,” and the historical compliment of the -Irish coal-porter to one of the beautiful Gunnings: “Sure, I could light -my pipe by the fire of her eye.”</p> - -<p>Sometimes a compliment or a wheedling good wish will take a sudden turn. -“May the blessin’ of God go afther you!” says an Irish beggar—“may the -blessin’ of God go afther you!” The desired alms not being forthcoming, -the blessing flows naturally into—“and never overtake you.”</p> - -<p>The beggars are great wits, of a sardonic kind usually. A rather short -friend of mine walking with<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a> his tall sister, the two were importuned -fruitlessly by a beggar-woman. Before they passed out of hearing she -called gently to the lady: “Well, there you go! And goodness help the -poor little crathur that hadn’t the spirit to say no to you.” This -double insult to the supposed husband and wife was very neat.</p> - -<p>A matter-of-fact young sister of mine, having been begged from by a -ragged woman with a string of ragged children at one end of the village, -was importuned at the other end by a man, similarly accompanied, whom -she took rightly to be the woman’s mate. “We’re poor orphans,” whined -the second string of children; “our poor mother’s dead and buried.” “I -don’t believe it,” she said; “I met your mother at the other end of the -village.” “Take no notice of her, childer,” said the man sorrowfully. -“It wouldn’t be right to touch a penny of her money. She’s an -unbeliever—that’s what she is.”</p> - -<p>An old beggar-man, to whom I explained apologetically that I was without -my purse, looked at me benevolently. “Never mind!” he said; “you’d give -it if you had it, wouldn’t you? But there’s one thing I want to tell -you: your dog’s gone home without you.” I don’t quite know how it was -meant,<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> but it conveyed to me a sense of well-meaning failure and -inefficiency generally.</p> - -<p>The salutations in Ireland used to be delightful. I hope it may be long -before they are out of date. “God save you kindly,” was the salutation -on the roadside. “God save all here!” you said, entering a house. And if -any work was in progress, you said: “God bless the work!” If they were -churning in the kitchen as you entered it, with the old up-and-down -dasher or “dash,” as I knew it, you took a few turns with the dash lest -you should carry off the butter. Butter and milk are things often -charmed away. When I was a young girl, there was at Lucan, in the county -Dublin, a fairy doctor, who was called in if the cows weren’t milking -well, or the butter didn’t come to the churn, or if the beasts were -ailing. A more Christian thing was to bring the live-stock to the priest -to be blessed, or to bring the priests to the field to bless them, which -is done every year. Even the Orangeman of the North, if he has a cow -ailing, thinks it not amiss to ask for the priest’s blessing. All the -same, the Irish Celts, in their superstitions, have a way of rounding on -their good friends, the priests. Priests’ marriages—that is, marriages -arranged by the priests—are proverbially unlucky. And to buy the -priest’s cow in a fair is<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a> notoriously unlucky for the general dealing -of the day, as well as that particular one.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 526px;"> -<a href="images/ill_016_lg.jpg"> -<br /> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -<br /> -<img src="images/ill_016_sml.jpg" -class="bord" width="526" height="406" alt="A HOME IN DONEGAL." title="A HOME IN DONEGAL." /></a> -<p class="caption">A HOME IN DONEGAL.</p> -</div> - -<p>The freedom of the people with their superiors is often a -stumbling-block to the stranger; while to the Irish man or woman the -division between classes in England will seem strange and -unnatural—inhuman almost. “That’s an elegant new trousers you have on, -Master John,” I heard an apple-woman by the kerb say to a young -gentleman. The intimacy is not at all presumptuous; very far from it. -Indeed, Irish people coming to live in England often blunder into -treating their inferiors with the easy intimacy of the life at home, -only to find that it is neither desired nor expected.</p> - -<p>Irish servants of the old class were retainers and very much devoted to -the families they lived with. The conditions were strange and difficult -to those not accustomed to them. You would find a family of the gentry -of the lowest Low Church on terms of tender affection with its -Papistical servants and with the neighbouring peasants. They would have -told you as abstract facts that Home Rule would mean the massacre of the -Protestants, and that already their lands and properties were -partitioned in the secret councils of whatever League happened to be -uppermost at the moment. It would be an article of their<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> creed that the -priests were accountable for all the troubles of Ireland. They would -have consented generally to the axiom that no Irish Papist told the -truth. Yet they would always exempt their own servants, and perhaps -their own tenants, and would fly at you as being anti-Irish if you -suggested a flaw in the Irish character, or even an excellency in the -English, which is almost as bad, if not quite. There are families of -Irish gentlefolk come down in the world whose servants, having feasted -with them, starve with them. One such servant I knew who managed the -whole finances of the family, and laid out the few coins to the greatest -advantage, allotting the supplies with a carefulness which must have -been bitter to her Irish heart. If the family lived too well at the -beginning of the week, it must go hungry at the end.</p> - -<p>In an Irish house the young ladies and gentlemen are very often found in -the kitchen, not in pursuit of the housewifely virtues, but for social -reasons. The kitchen-fire is the best “to have a heat by.” The cook will -rake out the ashes and make the fire bright for Master Rody or Miss -Sheila to warm their feet by; and in the kitchen Irish children of the -gentle class get filled to the lips with the peculiarly awful -ghost-stories of the Celt, with old songs and charms<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a> and folklore of -one sort or another; sometimes, too, with old legends and stories which -make young rebels of the children of the garrison and perhaps old rebels -as well. There is no nurse so warm and comfortable as a good Irish -nurse, as the little children of the Irish nobility and gentry—invading -or planted families, very often—found, drawing life from an Irish -breast, and wrapped up in a comfortable Irish embrace from all ghosts -and hobgoblins.</p> - -<p>I remember the young daughter of very Evangelical gentlepeople in -Ireland who used to spend her Sunday afternoons, with the full knowledge -of her parents, seated on the kitchen-table reading Papistical -newspapers to the servants, whom she adored, and who adored her with at -least an equal warmth. Her gold watch was the gift of one old servant; -and on the eve of her marriage to a London curate she found pinned to -her pincushion an envelope containing a five-pound note—“For my darling -Miss Biddy, from Mary Anne.”</p> - -<p>It has always seemed to me that the tie is closer and tenderer between -the Irish Catholic servant and the Protestant gentry than when the -employers are also of the old religion. It is certain that in the -burning of Scullabogue Barn, and at<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a> the Bridge of Wexford, during the -Rebellion, Catholic servants perished with their Protestant employers.</p> - -<p>The tender concern that may be shown for you by an Irish person of whom -you ask the way will stir you to wonderment. “Is it permissible to walk -on the sea-wall?” a friend of mine asked of an Irish policeman. “Sure it -is; but I wouldn’t do it if I was you. It ’ud be terrible cowld,” was -the reply. “I wouldn’t walk it if I was you,” you may be answered when -you ask how far a place is; “you wouldn’t be killin’ yourself—now, -would you?”</p> - -<p>When ladies first rode the bicycle in Ireland they excited different -emotions, according to the character of the looker-on. “What would the -blessed saints in heaven think of you?” the old women used to call out; -but one old man had only compassion for the female cyclist. “God help -yez,” he said; “’tis killin’ yourselves yez’ll be with them little -wheely things, bad luck to them!”</p> - -<p>You will find the soft, insinuating ways in a shop when you make a -purchase or mean to make one. “It looks lovely on you,” a shop-assistant -will say, with an air of being dispassionate. “Can you send this home -to-night?” you ask, having concluded your purchase. “Sure, why not?” If -you are<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a> English-born and bred, you will be at a loss to say why not.</p> - -<p>A policeman in Dublin will direct you: “You take that turn over there, -an’ you go along till you meet a turn on your left, but you’ll take no -notice of that; you’ll keep straight on, and there’ll be another turn, -but you’ll take no notice of that. An’ after that, you’ll come to a -third turn, an’ you’ll take notice of that, for that’s the street you’re -after.”</p> - -<p>I recognized a countryman of my own in London when I asked a policeman -the way and demurred from his instructions, remarking that I had been -told to approach by a different way. “Sure you can, if you like,” he -said, looking at me with his head on one side, “but I wouldn’t if I was -you; it ’ud be a terrible long way round.”</p> - -<p>An Irishman will always agree with you if he can—or even if he can’t. -It is the Irish politeness. If you were to say to him, “Three years ago -to-day I had as bad a cold as ever I had in my life,” he will say, “To -be sure you had; I remember it well. ’Twas a terrible dose of a cowld, -all out.” This makes the Irish a very agreeable people to live with if -you have not offended them.</p> - -<p>There are one or two virtues, not of the shining<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> sort, which are hardly -virtues at all, but rather vices to the Irish. Thrift is one of these. -Another is its cousin, punctuality. No Irishman holds punctuality in -honour. Irish time is twenty-five minutes later than English time and -takes a deal longer than that to come up with English time. Any time at -all will do for an Irishman. “Punctuality is the thief of time” is one -of his axioms. Above all things, he despises punctuality about -meal-times, and this, I know, will wring an Englishman’s withers. An -Irish meal is served whenever it is ready; and if it is never ready at -all, the Irishman will take a snack when he feels he really wants it. No -Irishman is ill-tempered because his meals are late. He prides himself -on his indifference to food as one of the things that set him apart from -the unspiritual Saxon. You could hardly offend an Irishman more than by -accusing him of having a hearty appetite. His meals are all movable -feasts. Oddly enough, the Anglo-Irishman is quite as unpunctual as the -Celt, if not more so. He assimilates the ways of the Celt, while the -Celt remains untouched by his. The Anglo-Irishman is often as good a -trencherman as his English brother, but he would never think of -disturbing the machinery of Irish life so far as to expect his dinner at -a given time. I have been asked to dine in<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> Dublin and have arrived -punctually, only to find the tradesmen’s carts delivering the dinner; -and, having grown accustomed to English ways, I have made a frantic -effort to arrive at the appointed hour for a luncheon-party, only to -find the hostess lying down with toothache, and the drawing-room fire -still unlit.</p> - -<p>To be sure, you may arrive at a house at any hour of the day in Ireland -and fall in for a meal. If you arrive at a time within at all measurable -distance of meal-time, you shall not go forth unfed, although you be -press-ganged to stay. I shall never forget the horror of my Irish -friends when they heard that one was allowed to leave an English house -with the dinner-bell in one’s ears. “It must be an <i>awful</i> country,” -they said; then, detecting something of guilt, perhaps, in my air, they -ventured: “But that wouldn’t happen in an <i>Irish</i> house—not in -<i>yours</i>.” When I confessed that it had happened in mine they changed the -subject. If they had allowed themselves to speak, they would have said -too much.</p> - -<p>I know an Irishman settled in England—a North of Ireland, that is to -say a Scotch-Irishman, and a man of business—who always has the motor -round for a spin as soon as the<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> dinner-bell rings. He cannot keep his -English servants, and is grieved at their perversity, which would keep -him chained to a hot dining-room on an ideal evening for a motor-run. -His guests stay their hunger with sherry and biscuits while they await -his return.</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Peeps at Many Lands: Ireland, by Katharine Tynan - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT MANY LANDS: IRELAND *** - -***** This file should be named 43623-h.htm or 43623-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/6/2/43623/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Peeps at Many Lands: Ireland - -Author: Katharine Tynan - -Illustrator: Francis S. Walker - -Release Date: September 2, 2013 [EBook #43623] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT MANY LANDS: IRELAND *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - PEEPS AT MANY LANDS AND CITIES - -EACH CONTAINING 12 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR - - AUSTRALIA GREECE NEW ZEALAND - BELGIUM HOLLAND NORWAY - BERLIN HOLY LAND PARIS - BURMA HUNGARY PORTUGAL - CANADA ICELAND ROME - CEYLON INDIA RUSSIA - CHINA IRELAND SCOTLAND - CORSICA ITALY SIAM - DENMARK JAMAICA SOUTH AFRICA - EDINBURGH JAPAN SOUTH SEAS - EGYPT KASHMIR SPAIN - ENGLAND KOREA SWEDEN - FINLAND LONDON SWITZERLAND - FRANCE MOROCCO TURKEY - GERMANY NEW YORK WALES - - PEEPS AT NATURE - - WILD FLOWERS AND THEIR WONDERFUL WAYS - BRITISH LAND MAMMALS - BIRD LIFE OF THE SEASONS - THE HEAVENS - - PEEPS AT HISTORY - - CANADA JAPAN - INDIA SCOTLAND - - PEEPS AT GREAT RAILWAYS - - THE LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY -THE NORTH-EASTERN AND GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAYS - -PUBLISHED BY ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK - -SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. - - AGENTS - - AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - 64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK - - AUSTRALASIA OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS - 205 FLINDERS LANE, MELBOURNE - - CANADA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD. - ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE, 70 BOND STREET, TORONTO - - INDIA MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD. - MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY - 309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA - -[Illustration: THE EAGLE'S NEST, KILLARNEY.] - -[Illustration] - - - - - PEEPS AT MANY LANDS - - IRELAND - - BY - - KATHARINE TYNAN - - AUTHOR OF "THE DEAR IRISH GIRL," "AN ISLE IN THE - WATER," ETC. - - WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS - IN COLOUR - - BY - - FRANCIS S. WALKER, R.H.A. - - LONDON - ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK - 1911 - - _First printed November, 1909 - Reprinted October, 1910, and September, 1911_ - - - - -CONTENTS - - -CHAPTER PAGE - - I. ARRIVAL 1 - - II. DUBLIN 6 - - III. THE IRISH COUNTRY 20 - - IV. THE IRISH PEOPLE 27 - - V. SOUTH OF DUBLIN 38 - - VI. THE NORTH 44 - - VII. CORK AND THEREABOUTS 49 - -VIII. GALWAY 58 - - IX. DONEGAL OF THE STRANGER 65 - - X. IRISH TRAITS AND WAYS 76 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - -THE EAGLE'S NEST, KILLARNEY _Frontispiece_ - - FACING PAGE - -A VILLAGE IN ACHILL viii - -SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN 9 - -DUBLIN BAY FROM VICTORIA HILL 16 - -BLARNEY CASTLE 25 - -OFF TO AMERICA 32 - -A WICKLOW GLEN 41 - -THE RIVER LEE 48 - -RALEIGH'S HOUSE, MYRTLE GROVE 57 - -GLENCOLUMBKILLE HEAD 64 - -A DONEGAL HARVEST 73 - -A HOME IN DONEGAL 80 - -DIGGING POTATOES _on the cover_ - - _Sketch-Map of Ireland on p. vii_ - -[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF IRELAND.] - -[Illustration: A VILLAGE IN ACHILL.] - - - - -IRELAND - - - - -CHAPTER I - -ARRIVAL - - -It may safely be said that any boy or girl who takes a peep at Ireland -will want another peep. Between London and Ireland, so far as atmosphere -and the feeling of things is concerned, there is a world of distance. Of -course, it is the difference between two races, for the Irish are mainly -Celtic, and the Celtic way of thinking and speaking and feeling is as -different as possible from the Saxon or the Teuton, and the Celt has -influenced the Anglo-Irish till they are as far away from the English -nearly as the Celts themselves. If you are at all alert, you will begin -to find the difference as soon as you step off the London and North -Western train at Holyhead and go on board the steamer for Kingstown. The -Irish steward and stewardess will have a very different way from the -formal English way. They will be expansive. They will use ten words to -one of the English official. Their speech will be picturesque; and if -you are gifted with a sense of humour--and if you are not, you had -better try to beg, borrow or steal it before you go to Ireland--there -will be much to delight you. I once heard an Irish steward on a long-sea -boat at London Docks remonstrate with the passengers in this manner: - -"Gentlemen, gentlemen, will yez never get to bed? Yez know as well as I -do that every light on the boat is out at twelve o'clock. It's now a -quarter to wan, and out goes the lights in ten minutes." - -There is what the Englishman calls an Irish bull in this speech; but the -Irish bull usually means that something is left to the imagination. I -will leave you to discover for yourself the hiatus which would have made -the steward's remark a sober English statement. - -These things make an Irish heart bound up as exultantly as the lark -springs to the sky of a day of April--that is to say, of an Irish exile -home-returning--for the dweller in Ireland grows used to such pearls of -speech. - -Said a stewardess to whom I made a request that she would bring to my -cabin a pet-dog who, under the charge of the cook, was making the night -ring with his lamentations: "Do you want to have me murdered?" This -only conveyed that it was against the regulations. But while she looked -at me her eye softened. "I'll do it for _you_," she said, with a subtle -suggestion that she wouldn't do it for anyone else; and then added -insinuatingly, "if the cook was to mind the basket?" "To be sure," said -I, being Irish. "Ask the cook if he will kindly mind the basket and let -me have the dog." And so it was done, and the cook had his perquisite, -while I had the dog. - -At first, unless you have a very large sense of humour--and many English -people have, though the Irish who do not know anything about them deny -it to them _en bloc_--you will be somewhat bewildered. Apropos of the -same little dog, we asked a policeman at the North Wall, one wintry -morning of arrival, if the muzzling order was in force in Dublin. - -"Well, it is and it isn't," he said. "Lasteways, there's a muzzlin' -order on the south side, but there isn't on the north, through Mr. L---- -on the North Union Board, that won't let them pass it. If I was you I'd -do what I liked with the dog this side of the river, but when I crossed -the bridge I'd hide him. You'll be in a cab, won't you?" - -After you've had a few peeps at Ireland, you won't want the jokes -explained to you, perhaps, or the picturesqueness of speech -demonstrated. - -Before you glide up to the North Wall Station you will have discovered -some few things about Ireland besides the picturesqueness of the Irish -tongue. You will have seen the lovely coast-line, all the townships -glittering in a fairy-like atmosphere, with the mountains of Dublin and -Wicklow standing up behind them. You will have passed Howth, that -wonderful rock, which seems to take every shade of blue and purple, and -silver and gold, and pheasant-brown and rose. You will have felt the -Irish air in your face; and the Irish air is soft as a caress. You will -have come up the river, its squalid and picturesque quays. You will have -noticed that the poor people walking along the quay-side are far more -ragged and unkempt generally than the same class in England. The women -have a way of wearing shawls over their heads which does not belong -naturally to the Western world, and sets one to thinking of the curious -belief some people have entertained about the Irish being descended from -the lost tribes. A small girl in a Dublin street will hold her little -shawl across her mouth, revealing no more of the face than the eyes and -nose, with an effect which is distinctly Eastern. The quay-side streets -are squalid enough, and the people ragged beyond your experience, but -there will be no effect of depression and despondency such as assails -you in the East End of London. The people are much noisier. They greet -each other with a shrillness that reminds you of the French. The streets -are cheerful, no matter how poor they may be. I have always said that -there is ten times the noise in an Irish street, apart from mere -traffic, than in an English one. An Irish village is full of noise, -chatter of women, crying of children, barking of dogs, lowing of cattle, -bleating of sheep, crowing of cocks, cackling of hens, quacking of -ducks, grunting of pigs. The people talk at the top of their voices, so -that you might suppose them to be quarrelling. It is merely the dramatic -sense. I have heard an Irish peasant make a bald statement--or, at -least, it would have been bald in an English mouth--as though she -pleaded, argued, remonstrated, scolded, deprecated. - -Accustomed to Irish ways, English villages have always appeared very -dead to me. Unless it be on market morning, one might be in the Village -of the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty. I once visited Dunmow of the -Flitch of a golden May-day. It was neither Flitch Day nor Market Day, -and I aver that I walked through the town and saw no living creature, -except a cat fast asleep, right in the midst of the sun-baked roadway. -Such a thing could not have happened in Ireland. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -DUBLIN - - -Dublin is a city of magnificences and squalors. It has the widest street -in Europe, they say, in Sackville Street, which, after the manner of the -policeman and the muzzling order, half the population calls O'Connell -Street. The public buildings are very magnificent. These are due, for -the greater part, to the man who found Dublin brick and left it -marble--that great city-builder, John Claudius Beresford, of the latter -half of the eighteenth century, whose name is at once famous and -infamous to the Irish ear, because when he had made a new Dublin he -flogged rebels in Beresford's Riding-School in Marlborough Street with a -thoroughness which left nothing to be desired except a little mercy. -Beresford, who was one of the Waterford Beresfords, was First -Commissioner of Revenue, as well as an Alderman of the City of Dublin. -Before he went city-building, Dublin was a small place enough. For -centuries it consisted chiefly of Dublin Castle, the two -cathedrals--Patrick's and Christ's Church; Dublin is alone in Northern -Europe in possessing two cathedrals--and the narrow streets that -clustered about them. Somewhere about the middle of the eighteenth -century St. Stephen's Green was built--the finest square in Europe, we -say; I do not know if the claim be well founded. A little later -Sackville Street began to take shape, communicating with the other bank -of the river by ferry-boats. Essex Bridge was at that time the most -easterly of the bridges, and the banks of the river were merely -mud-flats, especially so where James Gandon's masterpiece, the -Custom-House, was presently to rear its stately facade. The latter part -of the eighteenth century was the great age of Dublin. Ireland still had -its Lords and Commons, who had declared their legislative independence -of England in 1782. Society was as brilliant as London, and far gayer. -It was certainly a time in which to go city-building, for these -splendours needed housing. Before Beresford began his plans, calling in -the genius of James Gandon, with many lesser lights, to assist him, -Sackville Street and Dublin generally were as insanitary as any town of -the Middle Ages. Open sewers ran down the middle of the streets. There -was no pretence at paving. The streets were ill-lit by smelly oil-lamps. -The Dublin watchmen found plenty to do, as did their brethren in London, -in protecting peaceful citizens from the pranks of the Dublin brethren -of the London Mohocks in the tortuous and ill-lit streets. Dublin, the -city of the English pale, remained and remains an English city--with a -difference. The Anglo-Irish did the things their London brethren were -doing--with a difference. If there were unholy revels at Medmenham Abbey -on the Thames, they were imitated or excelled by their Irish prototypes, -whose clubhouse you will still see standing up before you a ruin on top -of the Dublin mountains. In many ways the society of Dublin models -itself on London to this day. - -The Lords and Commons of Ireland were already living about the Rotunda -in Sackville Street, Rutland Square, Gardiner's Row, Great Denmark -Street, Marlborough Street, and North Great George's Street, when John -Claudius Beresford began his work. He bridged the river with -Carlisle--now O'Connell--Bridge. He constructed Westmoreland Street -right down to the Houses of Parliament. - -[Illustration: SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN.] - -He built the Custom-House, now a rabbit-warren of Government offices, on -a scale proportioned to the needs of the greatest trading city in -Europe, oblivious of the fact that Irish trade was going or gone; or, -perhaps--who knows?--building for the future. All that part of the city -lying between the new bridge and the Custom-House was laid out in -streets. Meanwhile the nobility and gentry who had town-houses were -seized with the passion for beautifying them. The old Dublin houses were -of an extraordinary stateliness and beauty. Money was poured out like -water on their beautification. The floral decoration in stucco-work on -walls and ceilings still makes a dirty glory in some of the old houses. -Famous artists, like Cipriani and Angelica Kauffmann, painted the -wall-panels and ceilings with pseudo-classical goddesses and nymphs. A -certain Italian named Bossi executed that inlaying in coloured marbles -which made so many of the old mantelpieces things of beauty. The old -Dublin houses still retain their stately proportions, although some of -them have been dismantled and others come down to be tenement-houses. -But there is yet plenty to remind us that Dublin had once its Augustan -Age. - -If you have the tastes of the antiquary, the old Dublin houses and -buildings will afford you matter of great interest. - -In the first place, there is Dublin Castle, which was built by King -John. Of the four original towers, only one now remains. The castle has -been the town residence of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland since Sidney -established himself there in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. For the rest, -it is a congerie of Government offices of one sort or another. - -The castle was built over the Poddle River, which now creeps in -darkness, degraded to a common sewer, under the dark and dismal houses, -and empties itself in an unclean cascade through a grating in the Quay -walls, whence it flows away with the Liffey to the sea. You can visit -the Chapel Royal, if you will, and the viceregal apartments are -sometimes open to inspection if the Viceroy is not in residence. I lived -many years in Dublin without desiring to inspect what may be seen of -Dublin Castle, though I have often stood in the castle yard under the -Bermingham Tower, and, looking up at that great keep, have remembered -how Hugh O'Donnell and his companions escaped by way of the Poddle one -Christmas Eve in the spacious days of great Elizabeth, and how the young -chieftain of Tyrconnel narrowly escaped the frozen death which befell -his companions as they climbed those Dublin mountains over yonder to -find refuge with the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes of the Wicklow Hills. - -Those were the Irish clans that used to make the English burghers of -Dublin shake in their shoes. While they sold their silks or woollens, or -sat at meals or exchange, or said their prayers in their churches, they -never could be sure that the wild Irish cry would not come ringing at -their gates. The O'Byrnes and O'Tooles would swoop down at intervals, -and raid the cattle from the fat pastures of the pale, sweeping back -again with their spoil to their impregnable fastnesses. Some years ago a -Father O'Toole published a book on the Clan of O'Toole, which contained -the genealogical tree of the O'Tooles, tracing their descent without a -break from Noah. This is a matter of interest to me, as I myself am an -O'Toole. - -The history of nations is, after all, the history of men--of men and of -movements--and it is individual and outstanding men who make for us the -milestones of history. Ireland has produced, in proportion to her -population, a more than usual number of outstanding men; and, thinking -of Dublin houses and monuments of one kind or another, we find it is of -men we are thinking, after all. - -Thinking of Christ Church, that beautiful Gothic cathedral, I think of -St. Patrick, because his staff was preserved there, and was an object of -great reverence till it was burnt by a too-zealous reforming Bishop in -the days of Elizabeth. St. Patrick was a very delightful saint. One -loves the legends that gather about him. I like especially how he -wrestled with the angel on Croagh-Patrick, and would not come down from -the mountain till he had been granted his several prayers. There were -three in particular. The first one was that Ireland should never depart -from the Christian faith. "Very well, then," said the angel, "God grants -you that." "Next," said Patrick, "I ask that on the Judgment Day I may -sit on God's right hand and judge the Irish people." "That you can't -have," said the angel. "Be quiet now, and go down from the mountain." -"What!" said Patrick, "is it for this that I have fasted so many days on -the mountain, wrested with evil ones, been exposed to the rain and -tempest, prayed hard, fought temptations--only for this?" "Very well, -you shall have this," replied the angel. "And now that you have your -wish satisfied, go down from the mountain." "Not till my third prayer be -granted." "What! a third prayer?" cried the angel. "You ask too much, O -Patrick, and you shall not have it. You are too covetous." "Was it for -this?" began Patrick again, with a recital of all he had done and -suffered. "Very well, then," said the angel, tired out; "have your third -prayer, but ask no more, for it will not be given to you." "I ask that -all who recite my prayer" (_i.e._, the prayer known as St. Patrick's -Breastplate) "shall not be lost at the Last Day." "Very well, then," -said the angel, "you shall have that; but now go down." "I am content -now," said Patrick; "I will go down." - -He was a fighting saint, despite his many gentlenesses. At Downpatrick, -where he built his cathedral, he took a little fawn which his men would -have killed, and carried it in his breast. I like the description of him -by his friend St. Evan of Monasterevan, which tells us how he was sweet -to his friends, but terrible to his enemies. - -I think of St. Patrick at Christ Church rather than of St. Lawrence -O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, who, with Strongbow, that fierce Norman -who seized Ireland for Henry II. of England, built Christ Church. St. -Lawrence O'Toole's heart lies here in a reliquary. Here also Lambert -Simnel was crowned; but who thinks of that ignoble impostor now? - -Christ Church presents an effect of lightness and brightness very -different from St. Patrick's, in which it seems to me it is always -afternoon, and winter afternoon. Patrick is in a particularly -picturesque slum of the city, in the Earl of Meath's liberty, hard by -the Coombe, which was once a pleasant dell, no doubt, but is now the -raggedest of slums. To the Earl of Meath's liberty came the French -silk-weavers expelled from France after the revocation of the Edict of -Nantes, and established the industry of poplin-weaving there. - -The man with whom St. Patrick's Cathedral is associated is Jonathan -Swift, and for his sake it is perpetually dark. It is haunted by the -tragedy of his life and death. Here Esther Johnson is buried; and over -yonder, in the Deanery House, Swift, a sick man, lay in bed and watched -the torches in the great church when they were making ready her grave. -The strange bitterness of the terrible inscription which commemorates -that most unhappy great man seems to colour the atmosphere of St. -Patrick's. "Where fierce indignation can no more lacerate his heart," he -rests by the side of the woman who was faithful to him with a long -patience, whose death left him to loneliness and madness. - -The whole place is haunted by him, as is the deanery close by and the -old library of Dr. Marsh, which is said to have a ghost that flings the -books about at night. - -What ghosts meet one in the Dublin streets! There is Wesley. He was -visiting the Countess of Moira at Moira House, which now, docked of its -upper story, is the Mendicity, or, as the Irish put it, the "Mendacity" -Institution. It was a splendid mansion when Wesley was there. One room -with a bay-window was lined with mother-o'-pearl. "Alas," said Wesley -prophetically, "that all this must vanish like a dream!" The Moiras were -not only religious: they were cultivated, refined, patriotic in the -truest sense--altogether noble and generous. They received poor Pamela, -Lady Edward Fitzgerald, with kindly open arms when that romantic hero, -Lord Edward, lay dying of his wounds. - -You shall see, if you will, the old House of Lords, preserved in its old -state by the Governors of the Bank of Ireland, who have made it their -board-room. The House of Commons has become the Bank's counting-house, -and there is no trace of its former state. What ghosts you might meet -there at night!--Grattan, Flood, Curran, Hussey Burgh, Plunket, to say -nothing of lesser worthies. Over against the Parliament Houses was -Daly's Club-House, where forgathered the wits, the bucks, the -duellists. There was Buck Whaley, who walked to Jerusalem for a wager, -and for the same reason once sprang out of the window of his house on -Stephen's Green into a carriage full of ladies. That house is now -University College, and has its associations with Newman; and you might -see there some of the most beautiful specimens of the eighteenth-century -decoration still remaining--the Bossi mantelpieces, the stucco-work, the -beautiful old doors of wine-red mahogany, and all the rest of it. Buck -Whaley had a friend, Buck Jones, who is commemorated in Jones's Road. -When I was a little girl--and how long ago that is I shall not tell -you--Buck Jones's ghost still walked the road which is named after him. -You see, Dublin still ranged itself alongside London; and we had our -Buck Whaley and our Buck Jones if London and Bath had their Beau Brummel -and their Beau Nash. - -[Illustration: DUBLIN BAY FROM VICTORIA HILL.] - -Cheek by jowl with the Houses of Parliament is the ancient college of -Queen Elizabeth--the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. That, -too, has memories and ghosts. The University has had illustrious sons. -Swift, Goldsmith, Bishop Berkeley, Edmund Burke, were among them. Swift -was "stopped of his degree for dulness," and had no love for his -_alma mater_. She had other sons, such as Robert Emmet and Theobald -Wolfe Tone and Thomas Davis, among her brightest jewels, though she -would not have it so. She spreads a quiet place of grey quadrangles and -green park and gardens midmost of the city, and she helps to give -dignity to Dublin, already by her Viceregal Court marked as no -provincial town. - -If I were to talk to you of the ancient history of Dublin, this book -would become, not "A Peep at Ireland," but "A Peep at Dublin." You will -see for yourself the ancient houses of the nobility, the Lords and -Commons of Ireland. Some of them have come to strange uses. Aldborough -House is a barracks; Powerscourt House was in my day a wholesale -draper's; Marino, the splendid residence of the Earls of Charlemont at -Clontarf, is in the hands of the Christian Brothers. Many of these old -houses are turned into Government offices. - -"Alas, that all this must vanish like a dream!" said John Wesley. And -how quickly he was justified! In the latter part of the eighteenth -century Dublin prided itself on being the gayest capital in Europe. -Perhaps Dublin had always too many pretensions. However, it was -sufficiently gay and extraordinarily picturesque. The Rutland -viceroyalty marked, perhaps, its highest water-mark of gaiety. It was -said that the Rutlands were sent over "to drink the Irish into -good-humour"--that is, to distract them from serious matters, such as -legislative independence and the like. However that may be, they did set -the capital to dancing. After all, it was always the Anglo-Irish who -counted in the rebellious movements. One has to go as far back as Owen -Roe O'Neill to find a Celtic leader. For the time, at all events, Dublin -gave itself up to the fascinations of the gallant and gay young Duke and -his wonderful Duchess. The Irish allowed that the Duchess was one of the -handsomest women in Ireland. Elsewhere she was reputed among the -loveliest in Europe. We hear of her dancing at a ball attired in light -pink silk, with diamond stomacher and sleeve-knots, and wearing a large -brown hat profusely adorned with jewels. Every night there were balls at -the castle or the Rotunda. The Duchess was dancing Dublin into -good-humour. There were all manner of other social festivities. Every -Sunday the Duchess drove on the North Circular Road, with six -cream-coloured ponies to her phaeton, all the rank and fashion of Dublin -following in coaches-and-six, coaches-and-four, and less pretentious -equipages. There was card-playing; there was hard drinking; there were -all manner of distractions, disedifying and edifying. For then, as now, -the representatives of the King and Queen took the charities under their -wing; and dancing at the Rotunda supported the Rotunda Hospital, to say -nothing of the tax on the waiting sedan-chairs, which put a few hundred -pounds more into the hospital's coffers. - -"Alas, that all this must vanish like a dream!" To be sure, many of the -most illustrious of the Anglo-Irish, more Irish than the Irish, refused -to be either danced or drunk into good-humour. The brilliant viceroyalty -lasted not quite four years, and the gay and handsome Duke left Ireland -in the saddest way, carried high on men's shoulders. - -Afterwards there were other things than dancing. There was the Rebellion -of 1798. There was the Legislative Union with Great Britain, which meant -for Ireland the absence of her Lords and gentry, and the spending in -London of revenues derived from Ireland. - -In the early years of the nineteenth century grass grew in the streets -of Dublin. Famine and pestilence followed each other in monotonous -succession. Emmet's Rebellion broke out in 1804. If you were interested -in such things, you would penetrate the slummy parts of Dublin as far -as Thomas Street to see where, in front of St. Catharine's Church, Emmet -died, and the house where Lord Edward Fitzgerald was arrested. - -Dublin is full of memories, of associations, of ghosts: no city in -Europe is richer in such. There is hardly a stone of her streets which -is not storied. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE IRISH COUNTRY - - -Dublin possesses great natural advantages. The sea, the mountains, the -green country, are at her gates. You take one of her many trams, and at -the terminus you step into solitudes, into "dear secret greenness" of -country; on to expanses of sea-sand, with the waves breaking in little -crisped curls of foam at your feet. She is ringed about with mountains. -She has a most beautiful coast-line. Turn which way you will on leaving -her, you are safe to turn to beauty. Round about her are clustered -various beauties. Beyond the Dublin mountains, the Wicklow Mountains, -into which they gently pass, invite you. The mountains have the most -beautiful colouring. It is an effect of the mists and clouds. I have -seen a mountain red as a rose, and I have seen one black as a black -pansy and as velvety. Sometimes they are veiled in silver, with the soft -feet of the flying rain upon them; and sometimes, because the sun is -shining somewhere, that same rain will be a garment of silver or of the -rainbow. - -She is the greenest country ever was seen. England may think she wears -the green; but as compared with Ireland her green is rust-coloured and -dust-coloured. I have gone over from London in May and have found a -green in Ireland that absolutely made me wink. - - "Sweet rose whose hue, angry and brave, - Bids the rash gazer wipe the eye," - -says Herbert; but the green, which is the eye's comforter of all the -colours, is, in an Irish May, of so intense a greenness as to have -something of the same effect as Herbert's rose. I think of the fat -pasture-lands at the gates of Dublin, as well I know them. In May they -are drifts of greenness, with the cattle sunken to their knees, while -the meadows white with daisies, gold with buttercups, presently to be -brown and green with seeding-grasses, have an exceeding cleanness and -brightness of aspect. Grass-green, milk-white, pure gold--these are -fields of delight. There used to be luxuriant hedges, too, ten or -twelve feet high. What hedges they were in May! with the hawthorn in -full bloom--no one calls it may in Ireland--and, later, the -woodbine--honeysuckle in Ireland is the white and purple clover--and -with the woodbine the sheets of wild roses flung lavishly over every -hedge. Since my young days an improving county surveyor has cut down the -hedges, though not so ruthlessly as here in Hertfordshire, where they -are noted hedgers and ditchers, and so strip the poor things to the -earth almost, just as they are coming into leaf, leaving the roads -pitiless indeed for the summer days. - -I think of the lavish Irish hedges and of the strip of grass white with -daisies which ran either side of the footpath. There was always a clear -stream singing along the ditch. It had come down from the mountains, and -was amber-brown in colour, and clear as glass; it ran over pebbles that -were pure gold and silver and precious stones, now and again getting -dammed around a boulder, making a leap to escape, and coming around the -boulder with a swirl and a few specks of foam floating upon it. Ireland -of the Streams is one of the old names for Ireland, and it is justified; -for not only are there lordly rivers like the Shannon and the -Blackwater, to mention but two of them, but there are innumerable -little streams everywhere, undefiled--at least, as I know them--by -factories. You can always kneel down of a summer's day by one, fill your -two hands full and drink your fill; and that mountain water is better -than any wine. You may track it, if you will, up to the mountains, where -you will find it welling out, perhaps, through the fronds of a -hartstongue fern, the first tiny gush of it; and you will find it -widening out and almost hidden by a million flowers and plants that like -to stand with their feet in water. Or you will see it, cool and deep, -with golden shadows sleeping in it, slipping round little boulders and -clattering over stones, in a tremendous hurry to escape from these sweet -places to the noisome city, where it will lose itself in the sewer water -before it finds its way to the sea. - -There is no such order in an Irish as in an English landscape: none of -the rich, ordered garden air which in England so delights Americans and -colonials. The Irish landscape is always somewhat forlorn, wild and -soft, with an impalpable melancholy upon it--this even in the fat -pasture-lands of Dublin County. How much more so when the bogs spread -their beautiful brown desolation over miles of country, or in the wild -places where man asks for bread and Nature gives him a stone! At its -most prosperous the country is always a little wild, a little mournful, -a barefooted colleen with cloudy hair and shy eyes sometimes tearful, -and no conventional beauty--only something that takes the heart by storm -and holds it fast. - -Irish skies weep a deal. That accounts, of course, for the great -vegetation, the intense greenness. If I did not know the Irish green I -should be unable to realize the mantle of grass-green silk which so -often the old ballad-makers gave their knights and ladies. Knowing the -Irish grass, I see an intenser green than if I did not know it. Where -there are not rocks and stones and mountains, where there is cultivation -in Ireland, there is leafage and grass of great luxuriousness. Of a wet -summer in Ireland you could scarcely walk through the grass; it might -meet above a child's head. Contrariwise, the flora of Ireland, as I know -it, is much less various and luxuriant than that of England. In a -childhood and youth spent in the Irish country--it was round about -Dublin--I recall only the simpler and commoner wild-flowers. On a chalk -cliff at Dover, when May spread a carpet of flowers, I have seen a -greater variety of wild-flowers than I knew in a lifetime in -Ireland--most of them unknown to me by name. - -[Illustration: BLARNEY CASTLE.] - -Nor do I think the birds are so many as in England, perhaps because so -much of Ireland is stripped of its woods; perhaps because Ireland has -been slower to protect the birds than England; perhaps, also, because of -the scantier population, which leaves the birds to suffer hunger in the -winter. There are no nightingales in Ireland, but I do not think we have -missed them, having the thrush and the blackbird, which seem to me to -sing with a richer sweetness in Ireland than in England; but that may be -because the Irish-born person is prone to exaggerate the sweetness he -has lost. But the most characteristic note of the Irish summer is the -corn-crake's. Somehow the Irish corn-crake has a bigger note and is much -more in evidence than his English brother. All the nights of the early -summer in Ireland he saws away with his rasping note, till the hay is -cut, when he disappears. I suppose one hears him as much in the -day-time, but one does not notice him. He is the harsh Irish -nightingale. Poor fellow! he is often immolated before the -mowing-machine; and you shall see him flying with his long-legged wife -and children--or rather scurrying--to the nearest hedgerow, where there -is always a plentiful supply of grass to cover him till he can make up -his mind to go elsewhere. It is a saying in Ireland that you never see -a corn-crake after the meadows are cut. A learned doctor has assured me -that they migrate to Egypt for the good of their voices. - -For the rest, in the Irish country there are villages of an incredible -poverty. The Irish village mars a landscape, whereas so often an English -one enhances its beauty. There are farmhouses and isolated cottages. The -farmhouses are seldom even pretty. Irish house architecture is terribly -ugly, as a rule, except for the few eighteenth-century houses which -derive from the English. The Irish farmhouse is generally a two-story -building, slated and whitewashed. It is too narrow for its height, -although the height may be no great thing. A mean hall-door in the -middle, with a mean window to either side, three mean windows -above--that is the Irish farmer's idea of house-building. I remember an -Irishman of genius objecting to Morland that his cottages were -impossible; there was never the like out of Arcadia. As a matter of -fact, the cottages were such as are the commonplaces of English -villages. But no good Irishman will concede to England a beauty, natural -or otherwise, which Ireland does not possess. The country shows many -ruins--ruined houses, the houses of the Irish gentry; ruined mills; -ruined churches and castles; and behind grey stone walls, unthought of, -uncared for, old disused graveyards filled with prairie grass to the -height of the crumbling walls. - -When the Irish go away they are always lonely for the mountains. No -other mountains are so soft-bosomed and so mild. They have wisps of -cloud lying along the side of them and the blue peak showing above. I -have seen a rainbow, one end of the arch planted in the sea, the other -somewhere behind the mountains, "over the hills and far away." Seeing -that incomparable sight, I understood why the Irish peasant imagines -fairy treasures hidden at the foot of the rainbow. I, too, have been in -Arcadia. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE IRISH PEOPLE - - -I must warn you, before proceeding to write about the Irish people, that -I have tried to explain them, according to my capacity, a thousand times -to my English friends and neighbours, and have been pulled up short as -many times by the reflection that all I have been saying was -contradicted by some other aspect of my country-people. For we are an -eternally contradictory people, and none of us can prognosticate -exactly what we shall feel, what do, under given circumstances; whereas -the Englishman is simple. He has no mysteries. Once you know him, you -can pretty well tell what he will say, what feel, and do under given -circumstances. You have a formula for him: you have no formula for the -Irish. The Englishman is simple, the Irish complex. The Anglo-Irish, who -stand to most English people for the Irish, have had grafted on to them -the complexity of the Irish without their pliability. It makes, perhaps, -the most puzzling of all mixtures, and it may be the chief difficulty in -a proper estimate of the Irish character. - -They will tell you in Ireland that you have to go some forty or fifty -miles from Dublin before you get into Irish Ireland. There are a good -many Irish in Anglo-Ireland, usually in the humbler walks of life, -whence you shall find in Dublin servants, car-drivers, policemen, -newspaper-boys, and so on, the raciness, the vivacity, the charm, which -in Irish Ireland is a perpetual delight. Dublin drawing-rooms are not -vivacious, nor are the manners gracious, although the Four Courts still -produce a galaxy of wit, and Dublin citizens buttonhole each other with -good stories all along the streets, roaring with laughter in a way that -would be regarded as Bedlam in Fleet Street. - -Get into Irish Ireland and the manners have a graciousness which is like -a blessing. I asked the way in Ballyshannon town once. The woman who -directed me came out into the street and a little way with me, and when -she left me called to me sweetly, "Come back soon to Donegal!" which -left a sense of blessing with me all that day. There was a certain -curly-haired "Wullie," who drove the long car from Donegal to Killybegs. -I can see "Wullie" yet helping the women on and off the car with their -myriad packages, can see the delightful grief with which he parted from -us, his shining face of welcome when he met us again a fortnight later. -To set against "Wullie" were the car-drivers, who certainly are -unpleasant if the "whip-money" does not come up to their expectations. -We say of such that they are "spoilt by the tourists," yet I remember -some who were not spoilt by the tourists, although they were perpetually -in touch with them--boatmen and pony-boys at Killarney; and a certain -delightful guide, whose winning gaiety was not at all merely -professional. - -Thinking over my country-people, I say, "They are so-and-so," and then I -have a misgiving, and I say, "But, after all, they are not so-and-so." - -They are the most generous people in the world. They enjoy to the -fullest the delight of giving; and what a good delight that is! I pity -the ungiving people. You will receive more gifts in Ireland in a -twelvemonth than in a lifetime out of it. The first instinct of Irish -liking or loving is to give you something. The giving instinct runs -through all classes. If you sit down in a cabin and see an old piece of -lustre-ware or something else of the sort, do not admire it unless you -mean to accept it; for it will be offered to you, not in the Spanish way -which does not expect acceptance, but in the Irish way which does. I -have many little bits of china given so, usually the one thing of any -consideration or value the donor possessed. I once sought to buy an old -china dish, much flawed and cracked by hot ovens, in a Dublin hotel, as -much to save it from following its fellows to destruction as for any -other reason. The owner would not sell the dish, but he offered it for -my acceptance in such a way that I could not refuse. When I go back to -my old home, the cottagers bring a few new-laid eggs or a griddle-cake -for my acceptance. I have a friend in an Irish village whose income from -an official source is L10 a year. She has a cottage, a few hens, and -enough grass for a cow when she can get one. Her gifts come at -Christmas, at Easter, on St. Patrick's Day, and on some special, private -feasts of my own--eggs, sweets, flowers, a bit of lace, or a fine -embroidered handkerchief, and, in times of illness, a pair of chickens. -That is royal giving out of so little; and I assure you that it blesses -the giver as well as the recipient. - -On the other hand, the farmers grow thriftier and thriftier. Sir Horace -Plunkett and men like him, truly patriotic Irishmen, are showing them -the way. Successive Land Acts lift them more and more into a position of -security from one of precariousness. They have more money now to put in -the savings-banks. Their prosperity does not mean a higher standard of -living, although that is badly needed. It means more money in the -banks--that is all. - -The Irish are very like the French. If the day should come when they -should learn, like the French, to be thrifty and usurious, I hope I -shall not be there to see it. Better--a thousand times better--that they -should remain royal wastrels to the end. - -As yet we need not fear it. Still, if you ask a drink of water at a -mountain cabin in the poorest parts of Ireland, you are given milk; and -_do not offer to pay for it_, lest you sink to the lowest place in the -estimation of these splendid givers. - -The hospitality is truly splendid. There is a saying in Ireland that -they always put an extra bit in the pot for "the man coming over the -hill." It is an unheard-of thing that you should call at an Irish house -and not be asked if "you've a mouth on you." If your visit be within -anything like measurable distance of meal-time you will be obliged to -stay for the meal. - -In England, when people are poor, or comparatively so, or feel the need -of retrenchment, they "do not entertain." It is almost the first form of -retrenchment which suggests itself to the Englishman; whereas to curtail -his hospitalities would be the last form of retrenchment to an Irishman, -and you will be entertained generously and lavishly by people you know -to be poor. The Englishman's different way of looking at the matter is -no doubt partly due to the fact that he is a much more domestic person -than the Irishman, and depends mainly on his family life for his -happiness and pleasure. Now, the French do not give hospitality at all -outside the large family circle, so that in that regard at least the -Irish will have a long way to travel before they touch with the French. - -[Illustration: OFF TO AMERICA.] - -I have said that the Irish are not domestic. They are gregarious, but -not domestic. The Irishman depends a deal on the neighbours; he has no -such way of enclosing himself within a little fortified place of home -against all the ills of the world as has the Englishman. Irish mothers, -like Irish nurses, are often tenderly, exquisitely soft and warm; but -the young ones will fly out of the nest for all that. Perhaps the art of -making the home pleasant is not an Irish art. Perhaps it is the -gregariousness, general and not particular--at least, general in the -sense of embracing the parish and not the family. To the young Irish and -a good many of their elders the home is dull. They go off to America, -leaving the old people to loneliness, because there is no amusement. -They do not make their own interests, as the slower, less vivacious -nations do. The rainy Irish climate seems made for a people who would -find their pleasures indoors. But the Irish will be out and about, -telling good stories and hearing them. They are an artistic people, with -great traditions; yet books or music or conversation will not keep them -at home. If they cannot have the neighbours in, they will go out to the -neighbours. - -They are very religious, and accept the invisible world with a -thoroughness and simplicity of belief which they would say themselves is -their most precious inheritance. The Celt is no materialist. He does not -love success or riches; most of those whom he holds in esteem have been -neither successful nor rich. Money is not the passport to his -affections. He ought never to go away, and, alas! he goes away in -thousands! Contact with the selfish, money-getting materialism has power -to destroy the spiritual qualities of the Celt, once he is outside -Ireland. When he comes back--a prosperous Irish-American--he is no -longer the Celt we loved. And he does come back: that is one of his -contradictions. The home he has left behind because of its dulness, the -arid patch of mountain-land, the graves of his people, call him back -again at the moment when one would have said every bond with them was -loosened. - -He is full of sentiment, yet he makes mercenary marriages. The Irish -match-making customs are well known. In the South and West of Ireland -the prospective bride is bargained over with no more sentiment than if -she were a heifer. She may be "turned down" for an iron pot or a -feather-bed which her mother will not give up to supplement the dowry. -Satin cheeks and speedwell eyes and a head of silk like the raven's -plume will not count against a bullock extra with a yellow spinster of -greater fortune, or is not supposed to count; for sometimes Cupid steps -in, although the match-making customs are usually accepted as -unquestioningly as a similar institution is by the French. And even in -such unpromising soil flowers of love and tenderness will spring up. -Under my hand I have a letter from an Irish peasant which I think -affords a beautiful refutation of the idea that sentiment and -match-making cannot go together. Here is a passage from it: - -"For the last few weeks I was anxiously engaged at match-making, as -matters were going from bad to worse; having no housekeeper, household -jobs and cares prevented me from attending to outside work. Well, at -last my match is made. The marriage is to take place next Thursday. The -'young girl' is twenty-two years, and I thank God that I am perfectly -satisfied with my life-companion-to-be. There were many other matches -introduced to me--far more satisfactory from the financial point of -view, some having L20, some L30, and one L40 more fortune than my -intended wife has, with whom I am getting but L90, while I must 'by -will' give L120 to my brother, leaving a deficit of L30; but, somehow, I -could not satisfy my mind with the other 'good girls' if they had over -L200--nay, at all. And the poet's words were true when he said something -like 'pity is akin to love'; pity I felt first for my intended wife, -with her simple, yet wise, unaffected ways, not used to world's ways and -wiles, 'an unspoiled child of Nature,' never flirted, never went to -dances, with the bloom of her maidenhood fresh and pure, and fair and -bright. When but a last L5 was between myself and her people _re_ -fortune, her very words to me were: 'Wisha, God help me! if I'm worth -anything, I ought to be worth that L5.' That expression of hers stung me -to the quick, so openly, frankly, and innocently uttered, and 'I'm -getting other accounts, but would not marry anyone but you.' Well, the -end was in that one night, sitting beside her in her father's house, the -feeling of pity changed to a warmer feeling, thank God; for if it -didn't, I would rather live and die single than marry against my will. -''Tisn't riches makes happiness.' I've read somewhere that when want -comes in at the door, love flies out of the window; but I don't believe -it--I don't believe it. And my brother is kind; he will be giving me -time to pay the balance, L30, by degrees." - -The Irish are notoriously brave, yet they have a fear of public opinion -unknown to an Englishman. Underneath their charmingly gay and open -manner there is a self-consciousness, a self-mistrust. For all their -keen sense of humour, they cannot bear laughter directed at themselves. -They dread to be made absurd more than anything else in this world. -They are responsive and sympathetic, yet too witty not to be somewhat -malicious; and they are warm and generous, yet not always so reliably -kind as a duller, slower people. They are irritable, so they are less -tolerant of children and animals, although they make excellent nurses, -as I have said. They have no tolerance at all for slowness and -stupidity, very little for ugliness or want of charm. They adore beauty, -though it doesn't count for much in their most intimate relations; and -it is not, therefore, the paradise of plain women. - -I have not touched on a hundredth part of their contradictoriness, which -makes the Irish so eternally unexpected and interesting. They can be, as -they say themselves, "contrairy" when they choose--and they often -choose. Yet, when all is said and done, they are the pleasantest people -in the world. Nor is their pleasantness insincere. They are pleasant -because they feel pleasant; and an Irish man or woman will pay you an -amazing, fresh, audacious compliment which an Englishman might feel, but -would rather die than say. - -Did I say that the Celt was gay and melancholy? He is exquisitely gay -and most profoundly melancholy. He is in touch with the other world, and -yet desperately afraid of it, or of the passage to it, being a creature -of fine nerves and apprehension; whence he will joke about death to -cover up his real repugnance, and yet hold the key to heaven as securely -as though it were the other side of the wall, with a lonesome passage to -be traversed. It is the lonesomeness of death which makes it terrible to -the gregarious Irishman, although he knows that the other side of the -wall the kinsmen and friends and neighbours await him, friendly and -loving as of old. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -SOUTH OF DUBLIN - - -If you go down from Dublin by the wonderful coast-line or through the -beautiful country inland which runs by the base of the mountains, you -will come upon beautiful scenery, and find a population not at all -characteristically Irish. The beauty of Wicklow, its wonderful woods, -its deep glens, its placid waters, its glorious mountains, is only less -than the beauty of Killarney, which is an earthly paradise. But in -Wicklow, in Wexford, in Waterford, the people's blood is mixed. -Sometimes it is Celt upon Celt, the Welsh Celt upon the Irish. There are -charming people in Wicklow and Wexford and Waterford, but to those -counties belongs also what I call the cynical Irishman--the Irishman -without charm of manner, the "independent" Irishman, who will not take -off his hat to rank or age or sex; yet he is Irish enough in the core of -him. And Wicklow and Wexford, with Kildare and part of Meath, were the -scenes of the Rebellion in 1798. Perhaps the memory of those days helps -to make the Irishman of the south-east corner of Ireland what he is, and -that is often something very unlike the gracious Irishman of the South -and West. He has his resentments. I have heard an Irishman say: "A -Wexford man will never look at a Tipperary man, because Tipperary didn't -rise in the Rebellion." The Rebellion, which was hatched in the North by -Ulster Presbyterians, broke out, after all, in Wexford, and on a -religious, and a Catholic, cause of quarrel. There could have been -nothing farther from the thoughts of the leaders of the united Irishmen -than to make a religious war, but that was what the Rebellion of 1798 -turned out to be--a religious war; a war between Catholic and -Protestant, precipitated not by English intriguers, say those who know -well, but by outrageous insults to the Catholic altars, led in many -cases by priests on the rebel side, foredoomed to failure in spite of -the desperate courage of the peasantry who for a time swept all before -them. One always thinks of Wexford and the Rebellion simultaneously. It -was a time of cynical contrasts. Think of the poor peasants, maddened by -outrages to their altars, led by their priests, carrying on the -Rebellion planned by Protestants of the North--by leaders deeply imbued -with the French revolutionary spirit, which was certainly not Christian! -Think of the Western peasants, when Humbert and his men landed at -Killala, hailing those good comrades of the Revolution as -fellow-Catholics, coming to meet them decked out in religious emblems! -One of the strangest and most cynical of these contrasts was the fact -that while the peasant army fought desperately at New Ross, where they -all but carried the day, on the other side of the Barrow River men were -ploughing peacefully in their fields, because it was Wexford that was up -and not their county. I suppose it is the clan system which -differentiates Irishmen by their counties and their towns. Dublin is -heterogeneous, perhaps. It has, at all events, few distinguishing -characteristics, whereas Cork and Waterford men are as widely apart -almost as though they were of different nationalities; and both are -agreed in despising Dublin, although Dublin has made history in the last -hundred years--national history--more than either. - -[Illustration: A WICKLOW GLEN.] - -The men who were the first begetters of the Rebellion, and the men who -saved Ireland for the English Crown, were alike men of Anglo-Irish -blood. The Rebellion was put down by the Irish yeomanry, as English -statesmen had to acknowledge, however little they liked the methods of -their allies. The yeomanry did not make war with rose-water, any more -than they precipitated the Rebellion by gentle methods. It is a bloody -and brutal chapter of Irish history, and the memories of it accounted -for the religious animosities which I remember in my youth, which are -fading out as the memories of the Rebellion are fading. The year 1798 -has ceased to be a landmark in Irish life. When I was a child, there yet -lived people who could tell at first hand or second hand of the terrible -happenings of those days. People used to say, fixing an age: "He was -born the year of the Rebellion." Now all that has passed away. Even in -those times it was becoming more customary to date events by the year of -the Big Wind, 1839. Now, with the establishment of parish -registers--which did not come in in Ireland till the sixties--and the -spread of newspapers and cheap knowledge generally, such landmarks are -no longer required; and the Big Wind of 1903 has wiped out the memory of -its predecessor. - -In the mountains of Wicklow the insurgents of those days found their -refuges and their fastnesses and their graves. I remember having seen -somewhere near Roundwood, in the Wicklow Mountains, in the midst of a -ploughed field a long strip of greenest grass covering the grave of many -rebels. The plough had gone round it ever since then, but not a sod of -it had been turned up; it had remained inviolate. - -A great deal of Irish history gathers round the Rebellion--_the_ -Rebellion, the Irish yet call it, as though there had never been any -other. The men who made it were literary men, in a more vital sense than -the men of '48, who were also literary. Two books of that day stand out -pre-eminently--Lord Edward Fitzgerald's "Life and Letters," edited by -Thomas Moore, and the Journal of Theobald Wolfe Tone. Lord Edward had an -exquisite style. His letters are the frank revelation of a beautiful and -gallant and innocent mind and heart. Without deliberation, without -knowledge, his family letters achieved the highest art. They are -immortal, imperishable things. - -Then Tone's Journal is as remarkable a human document. Tone swaggers -through these pages better than any hero of romance. Life, after all, -is the greatest artist, and one does not say, "Here is a true Dumas -hero! Here is a true Stevenson hero!" For Life is better than her -children. - -Nearly all the United Irish leaders left memoirs or journals behind -them. There was, perhaps, something of the self-consciousness of the -French Revolution in this keeping a journal in the face of battle. -Anyhow, we are grateful to Holt, to Teeling, to Cloney, for keeping -alive for us those days and those men. - -In Lady Sarah Napier's letters you also get most vivid glimpses of the -Rebellion--as, indeed, you do in the letters of the whole Leinster -family. Mary Ledbetter, that gentle Quakeress, of Ballitore, has told -her experiences of the Rebellion in Kildare; there is Bishop Stock's -Narrative of the French landing at Killala and those days in which he -entertained willy-nilly the French leaders and found them the most -considerate of guests. In fact, there is a whole library of Rebellion -literature. - -I ask pardon for treating Wicklow and Wexford as though they were the -theatre of '98, and nothing more; but, indeed, in the story of Wexford -the Rebellion stands up like White Mountain and Mount Leinster, and one -finds little else to say. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE NORTH - - -Between Dublin and Newry there is not much to see or to remember except -that Cromwell sacked Drogheda with a thoroughness, and that at Dundalk -Edward Bruce, the brother of Robert, was crowned King of Ireland. The -Mourne Mountains and Carlingford Lough bring us back to characteristic -Ireland. Beyond them one enters the manufacturing districts--that -north-east corner of Ireland which no Celt looks upon as Ireland at all. -In speech, in character, in looks, the people become Scotch and not -Irish. One has crossed the border and Celtic Ireland is left behind. - -In the north-east corner of Ulster they are all busy money-making and -money-getting. The North of Ireland has admirable qualities--thrift, -energy, industry, ambition, capacity. In other parts of Ireland you find -these qualities here and there; they are mainly, but not altogether, the -qualities of the Anglo-Irish--that is, in so far as they are a business -asset. The Celt has no real capacity for money-making, though at the -wrong end of the virtue of thrift--that dreariest of the virtues--he may -accumulate it. He will put an enormous deal of energy into something -that does not pay him in hard cash. Honorary positions are greedily -sought after by the Irish everywhere. They will run any number of -societies for nothing, will do the business of Leagues, of the Poor Law, -of the County Councils. The energy shown by the Celt in doing the public -business would enrich him if applied to his own. He has a large capacity -for public business, and an extraordinary readiness to do it, which is, -I suppose, the reason why he does the public business of America, while -non-Irish Americans sit by and grumble at his way of doing it. - -In Ireland and in America he does hard manual labour, but somehow the -genius of finance is not his. His hard work is on the land in one form -or another. Now and again he may build up quite a considerable fortune -in petty shop-keeping--the big traders are nearly all Anglo-Irish--but -when he does, his sons become professional men and the business ceases -to be. One can hardly imagine in Celtic Ireland what occurs every day in -English business life, where the son of a successful business man may be -a public-school man, a University man, and have had all the advantages -of wealth, and yet succeed his father in the business. And his son -succeeds him, and so on. This, in Celtic Ireland, would, I fear, be -taken as indicative of a pettifogging spirit. The Anglo-Irishman, on the -contrary, succeeds to the business his father has made, even though he -be a University man; and the Grafton Street shops are often run by men -who are graduates and honourmen of the University, and yet do not -disdain to be seen in their shops. - -There is nothing Irish about North-East Ulster except the country -itself, which does not materially alter its character, because it is -studded with factories. From the streets of Belfast you see the Cave -Hill, as from easy-going Dublin you see the Dublin Mountains. Perhaps -there is something of exuberance caught from the Celt in the -paraphernalia and ceremonial of the Orange Society. Who can say how much -of poetry it may not mean, that crowded hour of glorious life which -comes about mid-July, when men who have worked side by side in amity all -the rest of the year suddenly become bitter enemies, when the wearing of -an Orange sash and the sight of an Orange lily stir a fever in the -blood? - -Apart from such occasions, they are given in Belfast to minding their -own business, and minding it very well. The Belfast man is very shrewd, -but he has a great simplicity withal. He has none of the uppish notions -of the Celt, and though he makes money he does not make it to display -it. He is blunt and brusque in his speech and manner, and so not unlike -his Lancashire brother. He lives simply. In public matters he has the -priceless advantage, in Ireland, of knowing what he wants; and he -usually gets it, unless his demands be too outrageous. He is a hard man -of business, but in his human relationships he is kind and sincere. I -have known exiles of Dublin who went to Belfast in tears, and for the -first months or years of their residence were always sighing after -Dublin. When, however, they came to know the man of the North--he takes -a good deal of knowing--nothing would induce them to return to Dublin. - -Like his Scottish progenitors, he stands by the Bible. There is as much -Bible-reading in the fine red-brick mansions of Belfast as there is in -Scotland. He does not produce literature. The more artistic parts of -Ireland look down on him as one to whom "boetry and bainting" are as -unacceptable as they were to the Second George. But he encourages solid -learning, and he endows seats of learning as generously as does the -American millionaire, who in this respect offers an example to his -English brother. The Belfast man has the Scottish love of education. He -has many of the homespun Scottish virtues, and much less than the -Scottish love of money. - -At the very gates of Belfast you find the Irish country. The Glens of -Antrim are as Irish as Limerick or Clare. They are very beautiful, and -not much exploited. There is also the Giant's Causeway to see. The -legend of its construction is that Finn, the Irish giant, invited a -Scotch giant over to fight him, and generously provided the Causeway for -him to cross by; but he played a nasty trick on him, for he pretended to -the Scottish giant when he came that he was his own little boy. "If you -are the little son, what must your father be?" the Scottish giant is -reported to have said before taking to his heels. - -I do not believe the story. I believe that the Scottish giant came and -stayed. You see his children all over North-East Ulster. - -There are women-poets whom one associates with the North--Moira O'Neill -of the Glens, and Alice Milligan, a daughter of Belfast. They are both - - "Kindly Irish of the Irish - Neither Saxon nor Italian," - -nor Scottish. - -[Illustration: THE RIVER LEE.] - - - - -Cork and Thereabouts - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -CORK AND THEREABOUTS - - -There is something of rich and racy association about the very name of -Cork--something that suggests joviality, wit, a warm southern -temperament. Corkmen only out of all Ireland hold together. The rest of -Ireland may be fissiparous, disunited. Corkmen cleave closer than -Scotsmen to one another, and to be a Corkman is to another Corkman a -cloak that covers a multitude of sins. A Corkman in Dublin will have -friends in all sorts of unlikely places. What matter though a man be in -a humble rank of life--a cabman, a policeman, a postman, even a -scavenger! So he be a Corkman, he has an appeal to the heart of his -brother Corkman. It is a Freemasonry. There is nothing else like it in -Ireland, nor anywhere else, so far as I know; for the Scotsman coming -into England may draw other Scotsmen to follow him, but in the Scotch -sticking together there is less real affection than there is in the case -of the Corkman. To be able to exchange memories of the Mardyke, of the -River Lee, of Shandon and Sunday's Well, is to make Corkmen brothers -all the world over. Cork looks on itself as the real capital of Ireland, -and has always its eye on a day when Dublin will be dispossessed. - -It has a most excellent situation on the River Lee, and is surrounded by -all manner of natural beauties. There is plenty of business stirring, -and there is a good deal of opulence in Cork, where, Corkmen being men -of taste, they display it in their houses, their way of living and on -the persons of their beautiful women, with the irresistible Cork brogue -to crown all their other charms. Cork is nothing if not artistic. She -has produced artists of all descriptions--poets, painters, great -newspaper men (was not Delane of the _Times_ a Corkman?), musicians, -sculptors, orators, preachers. The words roll off the Cork tongue sweet -as honey. There is something extraordinarily rich, gay and alluring -about Cork and Cork people. They were always audacious. They set up -Perkin Warbeck as a Pretender to the English Crown, clad him in silks -and velvets, and demanded his acknowledgment at the hands of the Lord -Deputy. I do not know that as a city Cork took a great part in any of -the many Irish rebellions. It would make a city of diplomatists because -of its honeyed tongue. Queen Elizabeth, they say, was the first one to -talk of Blarney, which is a Cork commodity. There was a certain -McCarthy, Lord of Blarney, who would not come in and submit to the -Queen's forces, though week by week he promised to come and kept the -Queen's anger off by cozening words. "It is all Blarney," the Queen came -to say of fair words that meant nothing; but that is a derivation I -somewhat suspect. I do not know what Cork was doing in the Desmond -Rebellion, of the results of which Spenser has left us so harrowing a -description. She was perhaps enjoying herself after the fashion of that -day. Spenser married a Cork-woman, and has enshrined her in the -"Epithalamion," the most beautiful love-poem in the English language. -Cork has its links with the Golden Age of England, for Raleigh was at -Youghal, and Spenser at Kilcolman close by; and in Raleigh's house at -Youghal they show you the oriel in which Spenser sat and read the -"Faerie Queene" to his host, the Shepherd of the Ocean. Youghal and all -that part of the country round about Cork is steeped in traditions and -memories. St. Mary's Collegiate Church at Youghal might be in an English -town, and there are malls and promenades in those parts, with high, -crumbling houses, which suggest the English civilization of the Middle -Ages and not the Irish civilization before the Norman Conquest. The -Normans were great church-builders, but of their churches, as in the -case of the old Abbey of St. Francis at Youghal, there remain now only -ruins--a naked gable standing up amid a wilderness of graves, buried in -coarse grasses, which, when I was there, had a greater decency towards -the dead than had the living. For it is strange that the Irish, who love -the dead, have little piety towards their graves. - -From Youghal Sir Walter Raleigh sailed away to Virginia on his last -disastrous voyage. Spenser had gone back to London earlier than that, -heart-broken by the loss of his little son, who was burnt to death in a -fire at Kilcolman Castle. Raleigh and Spenser had received grants of the -lands of the attainted Desmonds. Very little profit either had of them, -and Raleigh's lands passed to the Earl of Cork, commonly called "the -Great," whose flaring chapel destroys the quiet of St. Mary's dim aisles -and chancel. Never was there so worldly a monument as this of Robert -Boyle, his mother, his two wives, and his nine children, all in -hideously painted and decorated Italian marble. The fierce eyes of the -great Earl are something to remember with dismay. - -I recall the evidence the great Earl adduced to prove that Sir Walter -did really hand him over his Irish estates on the eve of that journey -to Virginia--for a small consideration of money and plenishing for the -expedition. "If you do not take the lands, some Scot will have them," -said, or is reported to have said, Sir Walter, which reminds us that -Jamie had succeeded Elizabeth, and was already transplanting his -Scots--Jamie, who was to keep so brilliant a bird as Sir Walter in so -squalid a cage as a prison till he made up his mind to send him to the -block. Youghal is haunted by Sir Walter and Spenser. My memories of the -place in a windy autumn are brightened by sudden gleams, as of splendid -attire and golden olive faces with the Elizabethan ruff and the -Elizabethan pointed beard. - -The Blackwater, which runs through Youghal, dropping into the sea at -that point, had at Rhincrew Point its House of Knights Templars. From -Youghal they also sailed away in search of El Dorado, but a heavenly -one. May they have found it! - -And also there is Templemichael, of the Earls of Desmond, the southern -branch of the Fitzgeralds, which Cromwell battered down for "dire -insolence." There is a story of a Desmond lord who was buried across the -water at Ardmore, the holy place of St. Declan, where there is a -pilgrimage and a patronage to this day. But holy as Ardmore was and is, -Earl Gerald could not sleep there. He wanted to be back at -Templemichael, where his young wife lay in her lonely grave. So that -night after night there came a terrible cry, "Garault Arointha! Garault -Arointha!"--that is to say: "Give Gerald a ferry!" So at last some of -his faithful followers rowed over by night, took up the body of Earl -Gerald, and carried it back to Templemichael and to the dead Countess's -side. And after that Earl Gerald slept in peace. - -My memory of Youghal in that far-away windy autumn is compounded of -three or four things. There was purple wistaria hanging in great masses -over the walls of the college which was the foundation of one of the -Desmonds. There was provision there for so many singing men--twenty, was -it?--who were to sing in St. Mary's choir. The great Earl of Cork had a -great maw, one that never suffered from indigestion. The revenues of St. -Mary's College went the same way as Sir Walter's slice of the Desmond -lands. Then, again, in a little shop-window of the town, there was a -glorious show of fruit--great scarlet-skinned tomatoes, gorgeous plums -and pears and apples, which reminded one that Raleigh had planted -orchards at Affane, on the Blackwater. As a rule, fruit is sadly to seek -in a small Irish town, although Cork produces some of the finest fruit -I have ever seen. Then, again, there was a room in Raleigh's house, -Myrtle Grove, unlit save for the flicker of firelight, the darkness all -about us, and an old voice bidding us to notice the earthy smell, which -was supposed to enter the room from a subterranean passage that led to -St. Mary's. - -Again, I have another widely different memory. It is of a fine, tall, -beautifully-complexioned girl standing behind the counter of a draper's -shop, her shining red-golden head showing against a background of little -plaid shawls and kerchiefs, while she lamented in her wailing southern -brogue the fact that no one could hope to get married in Youghal, unless -one had L300 to buy an old "widda-man"; and they were all the men that -were going. - -I like to get back from Youghal and its ghosts, and Rosanna, who never -thought of rebelling against the marriage customs of her forbears, to -cheerful Cork of the living and not the dead, with her tramcars, her -jingles--the curious covered car which takes the place of the outside -car in other Irish towns--her citizens laughing and button-holing each -other with a greater gaiety than the Dubliners; her excellent shops, her -beautiful girls promenading Patrick Street, her club-houses, her -churches, her Queen's College, and all the rest of it, down to her -river with its busy steamers. Cork's citizens live outside her gates, at -Monkstown, at Blackrock, at Glenbrook; and the busy steamers carry them -to and fro by the loveliest of waterways. "Are the steamers punctual?" I -asked a Cork friend. "Is it punctual?" repeated he. "They're the most -punctual things in Ireland, for they always get in before their time." - -Father Mathew is one of Cork's memories; Father Prout is another; Dr. -Maginn is another. But the list of Cork's worthies is a long one, and I -shall not enter upon it here. - -[Illustration: RALEIGH'S HOUSE, MYRTLE GROVE.] - -Cork has the most enervating climate for one who comes to it from more -northern latitudes. It is always soft and warm, and often wet. "Good -heavens!" said John Mitchel, when he came back from twenty years or so -of Australia, gliding in by Spike Island in that same silver mist of -rain in which he had gone out, "isn't that shower over yet?" The flowers -are wonderful in Cork, as well as the fruit. I have seen the suburban -gardens of Corkmen a luxuriance of vivid, closely packed, overflowing -blossom. Myrtles and fuchsias grow in the open air. There are hedges of -fuchsias at Killarney. There are hydrangeas also; but the same is true -of Dublin and its precincts. No one coming in from outside has energy to -do anything in Cork. But the Corkman lacks nothing of energy, nothing -of the joy of life. He is a keen business man, and there is plenty of -industrial enterprise. He is interested in the affairs of the world at -large and of Cork in particular. He has his enthusiasms. He is a -tremendous politician, and does not mind being on the losing side so -long as it is the right one. He is a sportsman and a bit of a gambler; -he makes love and is a good friend. The place is full of wit and gaiety -and humour. His standard of living when he has money, or ought to have -it, is an unusually high one for Ireland. Some of those successful -merchants live, I am told, like merchant princes. He is lavish and -generous, and fond of display--altogether a rich, abundant, -highly-coloured character. He lives in an atmosphere of incessant wit -and humour. Hardly a man in Cork but has his nickname. "There goes Billy -Boulevard," you hear, and you are told that the gentleman so designated -desired to embellish Patrick Street with trees. But it was in Dublin -that they called one who had made his money in pneumatic tyres, and was -exalted above his humbler neighbours, "Lord Tyre and Side-on." - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -GALWAY - - -Galway is so synonymous with racy Irish life that a peep at Ireland must -be incomplete unless it includes a peep at Galway. It is full of the -strangest monuments of the past. It was once a town of the Irishry, in -the O'Flaherty country. But with the Norman Conquest there came in that -group of Anglo-Norman families known as the Tribes, who in course of -time went the way of all their compeers, becoming more Irish than the -Irish. "Lord!" said Edmund Spenser, "how quickly doth that country alter -men's natures!" The Tribes were, and are--for happily there are still -the Tribes of Galway--thirteen, viz.: Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, -D'Arcy, Font, French, Joyce, Kirwan, Lynch, Martin, Morris, and -Skerrett. These Tribes became responsible in time for so much of the -wild and picturesque life of the Irish gentry of the eighteenth -century--the duelling, the drinking, the racing, the gambling, the -general devil-may-care life--that Galway looms more largely, perhaps, -than any town in the social history of Ireland. Galway drew up a code -for duellists known as the Galway Code; and in the irresponsible life of -the eighteenth century, such as you find in Miss Edgeworth's "Castle -Rackrent" and in Lever's novels, the life which the Encumbered Estates -Act put a period to, the names of the Tribes figure oftener than more -Celtic names. For the picturesque wildness of Irish life was the -wildness of the settlers rather than the wildness of the native Irish. - -However, in the great days of Galway's trade with Spain and other -continental ports, traces of which are scattered all over the old ruined -city, which is as much Spanish as it is Irish, the Tribes were just -merchant princes, not anticipating the time when, _more Hibernico_, they -should fling trade to the winds and become the maddest crew of -dare-devils known in the social life of any country. And here I find, in -the record of the duelling and drinking days, traces and indications of -the English descent of the roysterers. For certainly there was a lack of -humour in the actors, though none for the spectator; there was a -solemnity--not always a drunken solemnity--in the way their pranks were -performed that was not Celtic; for the Celt has a terrible sense of the -ridiculous. Doubtless it was from his Anglo-Irish betters that the Celt -derived the habit of "trailing his coat" through a fair when he was -spoiling for a fight, though, to do him justice, he practised it only -when he was drunk. The Anglo-Irish duellists inaugurated the custom. -When on no pretext could they find a friend or neighbour to kill or be -killed by, they went out and "trailed the coat," like the gentleman who -rode on a tailless horse, with his face to the crupper, and, seeing an -unwary stranger smile, immediately challenged him, and rode home in huge -delight to look to his pistols. They were extremely solemn over their -pranks. One wonders how often the Celtic servants had a smile behind -their hand at such strange goings-on of their masters, which would not -have been possible to the self-conscious Celt. - -Over one of the gates of Galway was the pious legend, "From the -ferocious O'Flaherties, good Lord deliver us!" I have heard of other -inscriptions referring to other Irish septs over the remaining gates of -the town, but those I think are apocryphal. The fact remains that the -Tribes, having seized the town of the Irish after their rapacious Norman -manner, were obliged to wall it against the O'Flaherties, and doubtless -often slept ill at night because of the wild Irish battering at their -gates, as did their brothers of the English pale up in Dublin. - -Galway would at that time have been well worth sacking. A traveller of -the early seventeenth century reports: "The merchants of Galway are rich -and great adventurers at sea: their commonalitie is composed of the -descendants of the ancient English families of the towne: and rairlie -admit of any new English among them, and never of any of the Irish; they -keep good hospitalitie and are kind to strangers, and in their manner of -entertainment and in fashioninge and apparellynge themselves and their -wives do most preserve the ancient manners and state of annie towne that -ever I saw." - -They had their enactments against the Irish, including the MacWilliam -Burkes, who had gone over to the Irish, bag and baggage: - -"That none of the towne buy cattle out of the country but only of true -men. - -"That no man of the towne shall sell galley, bote or barque to an -Irishman. - -"That no person shall give or sell to the Irish any munition as -hand-povins, calivres, poulter, leade, nor salt-peter, nor yet large -bowes, cross-bowes, cross-bowe strings, nor yearne to make the same, nor -any kind of weapon on payn to forfayt the same and an hundred -shyllinges. - -"If anie man being an Irishman to brag and boste upon the towne, to -forfayt 12 pence. - -"That no man of this towne shall ostle or receive into their house at -Christmasse or Easter nor no feast elles, anny of the Burkes -MacWilliams, the Kellies, nor no septs elles, without the licence of the -Maior and Council on payn to forfayt L5. That neither O' ne Mac shall -strutt or swagger through the streets of Galway." - -You still find traces of the commerce of the Tribes with Spain, not only -in the old Spanish buildings of the town, but in the black Spanish eyes -and hair of the people. I remember to have been struck in Donegal by a -dignity, a loftiness of bearing, as well as by a height and stateliness -of the peasant people that made one murmur "Spanish" to one's own ear. - -One of the sights of Galway is the ruins of the house from the window of -which James Lynch Fitz Stephen, a Chief Magistrate of Galway in 1493, -hanged his only son for murder with his own hand, lest the townspeople -should rescue him. The house is called The Cross Bones nowadays, and is -situated most appropriately in Dead-Man's Lane. There remains but an old -wall, with a couple of doorways having the pointed Spanish arches and -some ornate window-spaces above. There is a tablet on the wall, bearing -a skull and cross-bones, with the inscription: - - "Remember Deathe, - Vaniti of vanitis, all is but vaniti." - -Some people believe that this Lynch is the "onlie begetter" of Lynch -Law. This, however, I do not believe, and I think it more likely to have -been derived from a Lynch of the mining-camps in Southern California, -who was the first to promulgate and put in practice the wild justice of -execution without judge or jury. Anyhow, I cannot see that the example -of James Lynch FitzStephen was an admirable one, and I do not believe -the legend that he died heart-broken as a result of his own stern sense -of justice. - -The palmy days of the Tribes were over with the Reformation, for they -did not cease to be Catholics, and so were in no great favour with the -predominant partner. Galway also stood for the King against the -Parliament, was besieged and taken by the Parliamentary soldiers under -Ludlow, who stabled his horses, according to report, in St. Nicholas's -Cathedral. After that Galway's great prosperity as a trading centre -passed away, and the Tribes scattered among the ferocious O'Flaherties -and others of their sort and became country gentlemen, with a noble -contempt for trade. The situation of Galway, on its magnificent Bay, -still cries out for commerce. The spectacle of Galway as a port of call -for American steamers has dangled before the eyes of the Galwegians for -a long time without being realized, although they made preparations for -it long ago, by building a hotel that would house a _Mauretania_-load of -travellers. - -Only the other day I listened to a Galway Tribesman conversing with -someone who had lived in Galway, and who asked after the old places and -persons. "What's become of So-and-so?" "He's just the same as ever; not -a bit of change in him. He comes home every night strapped to the -outside car to keep him from falling off." "And what's become of -So-and-so?" "Oh, he's done very well for himself. His father says, -'Mac's all right; he's got the run of a kitchen in Yorkshire,' meaning -that he married an English heiress." - -This conversation made me feel that to some extent Galway stands where -it did. - -[Illustration: GLENCOLUMBKILLE HEAD. _PAGE 70._] - -The Claddagh fishing village by Galway is something not to be missed. It -keeps itself to itself, with a reserve Celtic or Spanish or anything -else you like, but not English. It used to be ruled by its own King, who -was just a fisherman like his subjects, and was not exalted in his -manner of living by his royal state. He was chosen for his governing -powers and his mental and moral qualities, and his subjects were ruled -by him with a despotism that was never anything but fatherly. They -intermarried, too, among themselves--I do not know if this usage -survives--and their ring of betrothal, handed on from one generation to -another, has a design of two hands holding up a heart. At the Claddagh -they still have the Blessing of the Sea, but they will not make a show -of it, and even the Galway people are kept in ignorance of the time when -the ceremony takes place. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -DONEGAL OF THE STRANGERS - - -It once fell to my lot to make a hasty scamper through Donegal from end -to end; that is to say, as far as possible, I made the circuit of the -county, beginning with Ballyshannon, following the coast-line, with -divergences, from Donegal to Gweedore, going round by Bloody Foreland, -by Falcarragh and Dunfanaghy, and ending up by way of Letterkenny at -Ballyshannon again. I took ten or twelve days to do it--perhaps a -fortnight--staying each night at an inn. To Gweedore I devoted the best -portion of a week. Now, in that scamper I had a very characteristic peep -at Ireland. I missed, indeed, the wild gaiety of the South. Donegal -people are somewhat sorrowful. But I found plenty of types and racy life -nevertheless. - -It is a good many years ago now; and travelling in Donegal has been -simplified since then by the light railways with which the names of Mr. -Arthur Balfour and Mr. Gerald Balfour are gratefully associated. When I -was there I drove through the country, only taking the train from -Letterkenny to Ballyshannon on my return journey; and it was an -excellent, though somewhat expensive, way of seeing the country. -However, the hospitality was so wonderful that one only slept and -breakfasted in one's hotel. For the rest, the kind priests were only too -eager to give hospitality to myself and my companion. - -At Ballyshannon we stayed a night in one of those enormous old hotels -with a maze of winding passages, which suggest to one in the dead waste -and middle of the night that in case of a fire one never could get out. -The next day we came upon the first of the priests, who carried us off -to see everything that could be seen of Ballyshannon, including a visit -to Abbey Assaroe, which we knew already in William Allingham's poetry. -To the grief of these kind friends of ours, we insisted on going off the -same afternoon to Donegal town, to which we were driven by "Wullie"--the -first "Wullie"--a red-haired, taciturn youth, who suspected us of -laughing at him and was closer than an oyster. Your English man or woman -is the truly expansive person. When you want to get at anything from an -Irishman you've got to sit down and wait for the charmed moment when his -suspicion of you is put to sleep. Dr. Douglas Hyde got his Religious -Songs and Love Songs of Connacht by sitting over the turf fire in a -cabin, taking a "shaugh" of the pipe and offering a fill of it, passing -round a flask of poteen, perhaps. It might be hours, and it might be -days, and it might be weeks before you broke down the barrier of -reserve, well worth the breaking-down if you have "worlds enough and -time." You can't travel twenty miles in an English third-class carriage -before you have the intimate confidence of your fellow-passengers. You -are told which relative died of cancer, with harrowing details, which is -in a madhouse, and which in gaol; for the plain English people are the -most unreserved in the world, while the Irish are the most reticent. -And if you win a flow of talk from the Irish peasants, be sure they are -talking round what they have to tell by way of leading you away from it; -for an Irishman uses language to conceal his thoughts. - -We hadn't "worlds enough and time" for "Wullie." His lips were -tight-locked from Ballyshannon to Donegal. - -The next day we saw what was to be seen of the Castle, under the -guidance of the parish priest, whom we met walking in the Diamond. We -introduced ourselves to him. He was a delightful, humorous, stately, -kindly old man, and he looked at us when he met us with an eye that -asked: "Who are you and what is your business in Donegal?" It is a way -the priests have in the remote parts of Ireland, where they are -everything to their flocks. Being reassured, he gave his day to our -entertainment, taking us to see some of his parishioners when he had -shown us all the town contained of interest. - -Killybegs I remember as a beautiful bay, big enough to take in the whole -English fleet. The next day we went on to Kilcar, where we found our -third priest, who lived in a delightfully clean little cabin with a clay -floor. His housekeeper was barefooted, but he had dainty table -appointments. I remember that he had very good china, and he explained -that his mother had given it to him. He was the son of rather wealthy -people. We had a meal of fish, with a little fruit to follow; and while -we ate it a messenger was out prospecting for the loan of an outside car -for the priest. Sure enough, by the time we had finished the meal the -car was at the door, and our host carried us off to see the Caves of -Muckross, some six miles away. Incidentally, we saw Bunglass, that -magnificent cliff-face where Slieve League drops into the sea. I -remember a visit we paid to a cottage where a father sat at the loom -weaving, the mother was carding wool, and a black-haired daughter was -sprigging muslin by the little narrow square window. A scarlet geranium -in the window seemed to be in her night-black hair, and her tears flowed -when our little priest spoke to her. He told us that her lover had -married a richer girl and gone to America. I can remember quite well -walking up a mountain road where the friendly little lambs came and -trotted a bit of the way with us, and the voice of the young priest as -he told us of the innocence of the people--"not a sin in it from year's -end to year's end," for they were too poor to drink--and how his -ambition was to get away to the East End of London, where there was -something to do for a born fighter. - -A night at the excellent hotel at Carrick and the next day we were at -Glencolumkille, that wild and lonely glen between the mountains and the -sea, with the majestic Glen Head standing out into the Atlantic. In the -Glen are twelve crosses of stone, where pilgrims make the stations in -honour of St. Columba or Columkille, the Dove of the Churches. Above -Lough Gartan, on Eithne's Bed, he was born, and any who lie there shall -not have the pangs of home-sickness; wherefore many emigrants stretch -themselves upon that rocky couch before they cross "the Green Fields to -America." The Glen is full of the noise and thunder of the waves, and -Slieve League lies superbly up in the sky, reminding one of Browning-- - - "The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay." - -At Glencolumkille we met the fourth of our priests--a tall, thin, -Spanish-looking youth, who came to meet us with a collie at his heels. -Glencolumkille is very lonesome. There is only an Irish-speaking peasant -population of the very poorest, and the nearest one with whom our priest -could exchange a word on his own level was some seven Irish miles away. -He gave us an impression of immense loneliness, although his joy at -having someone to entertain irradiated his melancholy, handsome face -with cheerfulness. He was rejoiced that by the greatest of good luck he -had a bit of meat for dinner, for fish is the staple food of the Glen. -He was very much interested in news from the great world, and produced -with some pride a copy of the _Daily Telegraph_, several days old, to -prove that he kept in touch with the world. He told us that he was the -youngest of a large family, and his home was as far away as Dublin. Over -nearly a score of years I have the most vivid impression of the lonely -figure, the dog at his heels, as we left Glencolumkille behind us. He -had made us free of his house and hospitality, and parted from us with -the utmost unwillingness. - -Ardara, Glenties, Dungloe--I think of them, little villages lying -amongst gorgeous mountains, and remember that in those gloomy and -frowning fastnesses the Irish were safe against Cromwell's planters, -since what man who could choose, not being Irish, would desire to live -in such a place? A Donegal farm is something to remember. The one crop -the ground grows freely is stones--stones in millions, boulders as great -sometimes as a small house. There are glens that are nothing but stones -from end to end, about as promising ground as the Giant's Causeway for a -farmer. In such places you may see a little field, the size of a -tablecloth, snatched from the aridity of Nature by the incredible -industry of man. Everywhere in Donegal man asks Nature for bread and she -gives him a stone, unless it be the harvest of the sea, which he -snatches from her at the price of his life, it may be. - -I saw Donegal in April, softened as much as might be by the wild April -showers and the bursts of April sunshine. The clouds and the mountains, -the cliffs and the sea--Slieve League, Errigal, Muckish, Bunglass, Horn -Head, the Glen Head, Tory Island--were all beautiful beyond telling, -with a wild and stormy magnificence of beauty. I try to imagine their -desolation in winter and fail to realize it. - -Ardara I remember by the beauty of Glengesh on an April day, with a -hundred streams running down its sides; and at Ardara we halted on -Sunday, and knelt in the gallery of the church, looking down at the -peasants kneeling in rows on the stone floor before the altar. The doors -were wide open, and birds wheeled in from the sunlight and out again -with flashing wings; and the air was exquisite, fresh and wild and -sweet. - -At Gweedore, as I have said, we tarried nearly a week, held there by the -hospitality of the parish priest, who would have us see everything -thoroughly. We stayed at an idyllic little inn, and were fed on the -best and simplest fare: stirabout, made as only the Irish can make it; -home-made bread; delicious butter, new-laid eggs; little delicate -chickens, with green parsley sauce and boiled bacon, potatoes, and -cabbage, cooked as only the Irish can cook them; for in certain simple -dishes of their own the Irish cannot be beaten. - -[Illustration: A DONEGAL HARVEST.] - -There was a most picturesque waiting-maid, a shy little girl, as pretty -as a picture, who wore a pink cotton frock, and had pink bare feet -showing under it, who had the softest, most appealing of voices. - -At the inn our priest found us, sallying in with his great blackthorn in -his hand to see who were the strange visitors to the Glen. He was a -redoubtable priest--the Law of Gweedore, they called him--and he -sheltered his people as the hen sheltereth her chickens. The Glen was -exquisitely clean from end to end, though starveling poor. But the -priest saw to it that they did not starve. - -For four or five days, perhaps, we abode in this little inn, where the -Glen opens out to the sea. We visited the people in their cottages, -under the guidance of our redoubtable _padre_, and saw all there was to -be seen. His hospitality was unbounded, although at the time there was a -wide and bitter division in politics between us. - -I shall not soon forget the manner of our going. We had come now almost -to the end of our journey, and it was desirable that we should return to -Dublin as quickly as possible. He wanted us to make the journey round by -Bloody Foreland, and we wanted to do it as shortly as possible, striking -inland to meet the mail-car for Letterkenny at, I think, Gortahork. But -we knew better than to say "No" to the Law of Gweedore; so we thought to -slip away early in the morning, and made our arrangements the last thing -at night, after leaving his hospitable roof. - -But the Law of Gweedore knew all that happened in Gweedore. A full hour -before we had appointed for being called we were called. His Reverence -had arranged our conveyance, and _paid for it_--paid also, I think, for -a luncheon-basket. Willy-nilly, we went round by Bloody Foreland and -visited the evicted tenants, crouching under scraws and twigs, in -shelters which suggested the caves of the earth-dwellers rather than -anything fit for man. - -Gortahork I remember as a place where we had a good meal of tea and hot -cakes and eggs, and other things thrown in, for a shilling. And I -remember also the long, long drive to Letterkenny--some forty miles it -was, I seem to remember, but shall not pledge myself to it lest I be -confuted--and how we dashed along the sides of precipices, we on one -side of the car, with our feet almost touching earth, the other side -high in air, being weighted only with empty parcel-post hampers, of -which Donegal needs no great supply; below us--far, far below--a valley -filled in with mighty stones and rocks. The pace was so fast that we -could hardly keep our seats, though well accustomed to that car which -the unlettered English tripper is apt to call "a jolting car"; and the -driver was quite unaware of our discomfort, assuring us with as much -jocularity as a Donegal man permits himself that the horses never were -known to stumble, and that, although an occasional English tourist did -fall off, he or she always "fell soft." - -After all, when I look back to that scamper through Donegal sixteen -years ago, I remember the mountains and the priests. Monuments of a -beautiful hospitality, the priests for me mark the wild ways up and down -Donegal. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -IRISH TRAITS AND WAYS - - -An English person in Ireland may find himself astray because he will -have no clue to the minds of the people. I once heard two English ladies -returning from an Irish trip say to each other across a -railway-carriage, otherwise full of Irish people, that the Irish all -told lies. This was a rash judgment and a harsh one; I do not know what -the occasion of it was. Sometimes the Irish, through their naturally -gracious manners, will say the thing that will please you best to hear -rather than the absolute truth by rule of thumb. There is the -well-known, well-founded complaint about Irish distances; a peasant will -tell you that you are three miles from a place when you are really -seven. Now, of course you may be misled by the difference between the -Irish and English mile; and thereby hangs a tale. The Irish or -Plantation measure was adopted by Cromwell's planted English, so that -they might get a bigger slice of land than was intended for them. But if -you are told you have three Irish miles to go and find that you have -seven, almost certainly the thought uppermost in your misinformant's -mind was: "The crathur! Sure, he'll think nothin' of it if he believes -it's only three miles; and the spring 'ud be taken out of him altogether -if he thought he'd seven weary miles before him yet. And, sure, by the -time he's travelled the three miles he won't be far off the seven." - -The Irish mind, besides being very nimble, is subtle and complicated. It -may have gone off on an excursion before answering you which you in your -Anglo-Saxon plainness would never dream of; and your truth may not be -the Irish truth at all, and yet both of them be the genuine article. - -A very small Irish boy of my acquaintance, being rudely accused of -having told a lie, responded meekly: "I don't think it were really a -lie; I think it were only an imagination." - -"Are there any priests in the town?" you ask an Irishman; and he -replies, there being some half-dozen: "The streets are black with them." - -"You can't always depend on eggs, not if they comes in fresh from the -nest," said an Irish servant to me, when some of the grocer's "new-laid" -eggs had "popped" in the saucepan. The remark was purely consolatory -and was not at all intended to convey that the hens laid stale eggs. - -The Irish "bull," so-called, very often is the result of the -nimble-wittedness of the speaker. He has thought more than he has -expressed, and the bull implies a hiatus. "I'd better be a coward for -ten minutes than be dead all my life" is a famous example of an Irish -bull; but it only means "all the days of my natural life"; so much was -not expressed. - -My harsh critics of the London and North-Western express would doubtless -have found the soft, flattering ways of the Irish false and -hypocritical. One remembers the famous compliment, "No matter what age -you are, ma'am, you don't look it," and the historical compliment of the -Irish coal-porter to one of the beautiful Gunnings: "Sure, I could light -my pipe by the fire of her eye." - -Sometimes a compliment or a wheedling good wish will take a sudden turn. -"May the blessin' of God go afther you!" says an Irish beggar--"may the -blessin' of God go afther you!" The desired alms not being forthcoming, -the blessing flows naturally into--"and never overtake you." - -The beggars are great wits, of a sardonic kind usually. A rather short -friend of mine walking with his tall sister, the two were importuned -fruitlessly by a beggar-woman. Before they passed out of hearing she -called gently to the lady: "Well, there you go! And goodness help the -poor little crathur that hadn't the spirit to say no to you." This -double insult to the supposed husband and wife was very neat. - -A matter-of-fact young sister of mine, having been begged from by a -ragged woman with a string of ragged children at one end of the village, -was importuned at the other end by a man, similarly accompanied, whom -she took rightly to be the woman's mate. "We're poor orphans," whined -the second string of children; "our poor mother's dead and buried." "I -don't believe it," she said; "I met your mother at the other end of the -village." "Take no notice of her, childer," said the man sorrowfully. -"It wouldn't be right to touch a penny of her money. She's an -unbeliever--that's what she is." - -An old beggar-man, to whom I explained apologetically that I was without -my purse, looked at me benevolently. "Never mind!" he said; "you'd give -it if you had it, wouldn't you? But there's one thing I want to tell -you: your dog's gone home without you." I don't quite know how it was -meant, but it conveyed to me a sense of well-meaning failure and -inefficiency generally. - -The salutations in Ireland used to be delightful. I hope it may be long -before they are out of date. "God save you kindly," was the salutation -on the roadside. "God save all here!" you said, entering a house. And if -any work was in progress, you said: "God bless the work!" If they were -churning in the kitchen as you entered it, with the old up-and-down -dasher or "dash," as I knew it, you took a few turns with the dash lest -you should carry off the butter. Butter and milk are things often -charmed away. When I was a young girl, there was at Lucan, in the county -Dublin, a fairy doctor, who was called in if the cows weren't milking -well, or the butter didn't come to the churn, or if the beasts were -ailing. A more Christian thing was to bring the live-stock to the priest -to be blessed, or to bring the priests to the field to bless them, which -is done every year. Even the Orangeman of the North, if he has a cow -ailing, thinks it not amiss to ask for the priest's blessing. All the -same, the Irish Celts, in their superstitions, have a way of rounding on -their good friends, the priests. Priests' marriages--that is, marriages -arranged by the priests--are proverbially unlucky. And to buy the -priest's cow in a fair is notoriously unlucky for the general dealing -of the day, as well as that particular one. - -[Illustration: A HOME IN DONEGAL.] - -The freedom of the people with their superiors is often a -stumbling-block to the stranger; while to the Irish man or woman the -division between classes in England will seem strange and -unnatural--inhuman almost. "That's an elegant new trousers you have on, -Master John," I heard an apple-woman by the kerb say to a young -gentleman. The intimacy is not at all presumptuous; very far from it. -Indeed, Irish people coming to live in England often blunder into -treating their inferiors with the easy intimacy of the life at home, -only to find that it is neither desired nor expected. - -Irish servants of the old class were retainers and very much devoted to -the families they lived with. The conditions were strange and difficult -to those not accustomed to them. You would find a family of the gentry -of the lowest Low Church on terms of tender affection with its -Papistical servants and with the neighbouring peasants. They would have -told you as abstract facts that Home Rule would mean the massacre of the -Protestants, and that already their lands and properties were -partitioned in the secret councils of whatever League happened to be -uppermost at the moment. It would be an article of their creed that the -priests were accountable for all the troubles of Ireland. They would -have consented generally to the axiom that no Irish Papist told the -truth. Yet they would always exempt their own servants, and perhaps -their own tenants, and would fly at you as being anti-Irish if you -suggested a flaw in the Irish character, or even an excellency in the -English, which is almost as bad, if not quite. There are families of -Irish gentlefolk come down in the world whose servants, having feasted -with them, starve with them. One such servant I knew who managed the -whole finances of the family, and laid out the few coins to the greatest -advantage, allotting the supplies with a carefulness which must have -been bitter to her Irish heart. If the family lived too well at the -beginning of the week, it must go hungry at the end. - -In an Irish house the young ladies and gentlemen are very often found in -the kitchen, not in pursuit of the housewifely virtues, but for social -reasons. The kitchen-fire is the best "to have a heat by." The cook will -rake out the ashes and make the fire bright for Master Rody or Miss -Sheila to warm their feet by; and in the kitchen Irish children of the -gentle class get filled to the lips with the peculiarly awful -ghost-stories of the Celt, with old songs and charms and folklore of -one sort or another; sometimes, too, with old legends and stories which -make young rebels of the children of the garrison and perhaps old rebels -as well. There is no nurse so warm and comfortable as a good Irish -nurse, as the little children of the Irish nobility and gentry--invading -or planted families, very often--found, drawing life from an Irish -breast, and wrapped up in a comfortable Irish embrace from all ghosts -and hobgoblins. - -I remember the young daughter of very Evangelical gentlepeople in -Ireland who used to spend her Sunday afternoons, with the full knowledge -of her parents, seated on the kitchen-table reading Papistical -newspapers to the servants, whom she adored, and who adored her with at -least an equal warmth. Her gold watch was the gift of one old servant; -and on the eve of her marriage to a London curate she found pinned to -her pincushion an envelope containing a five-pound note--"For my darling -Miss Biddy, from Mary Anne." - -It has always seemed to me that the tie is closer and tenderer between -the Irish Catholic servant and the Protestant gentry than when the -employers are also of the old religion. It is certain that in the -burning of Scullabogue Barn, and at the Bridge of Wexford, during the -Rebellion, Catholic servants perished with their Protestant employers. - -The tender concern that may be shown for you by an Irish person of whom -you ask the way will stir you to wonderment. "Is it permissible to walk -on the sea-wall?" a friend of mine asked of an Irish policeman. "Sure it -is; but I wouldn't do it if I was you. It 'ud be terrible cowld," was -the reply. "I wouldn't walk it if I was you," you may be answered when -you ask how far a place is; "you wouldn't be killin' yourself--now, -would you?" - -When ladies first rode the bicycle in Ireland they excited different -emotions, according to the character of the looker-on. "What would the -blessed saints in heaven think of you?" the old women used to call out; -but one old man had only compassion for the female cyclist. "God help -yez," he said; "'tis killin' yourselves yez'll be with them little -wheely things, bad luck to them!" - -You will find the soft, insinuating ways in a shop when you make a -purchase or mean to make one. "It looks lovely on you," a shop-assistant -will say, with an air of being dispassionate. "Can you send this home -to-night?" you ask, having concluded your purchase. "Sure, why not?" If -you are English-born and bred, you will be at a loss to say why not. - -A policeman in Dublin will direct you: "You take that turn over there, -an' you go along till you meet a turn on your left, but you'll take no -notice of that; you'll keep straight on, and there'll be another turn, -but you'll take no notice of that. An' after that, you'll come to a -third turn, an' you'll take notice of that, for that's the street you're -after." - -I recognized a countryman of my own in London when I asked a policeman -the way and demurred from his instructions, remarking that I had been -told to approach by a different way. "Sure you can, if you like," he -said, looking at me with his head on one side, "but I wouldn't if I was -you; it 'ud be a terrible long way round." - -An Irishman will always agree with you if he can--or even if he can't. -It is the Irish politeness. If you were to say to him, "Three years ago -to-day I had as bad a cold as ever I had in my life," he will say, "To -be sure you had; I remember it well. 'Twas a terrible dose of a cowld, -all out." This makes the Irish a very agreeable people to live with if -you have not offended them. - -There are one or two virtues, not of the shining sort, which are hardly -virtues at all, but rather vices to the Irish. Thrift is one of these. -Another is its cousin, punctuality. No Irishman holds punctuality in -honour. Irish time is twenty-five minutes later than English time and -takes a deal longer than that to come up with English time. Any time at -all will do for an Irishman. "Punctuality is the thief of time" is one -of his axioms. Above all things, he despises punctuality about -meal-times, and this, I know, will wring an Englishman's withers. An -Irish meal is served whenever it is ready; and if it is never ready at -all, the Irishman will take a snack when he feels he really wants it. No -Irishman is ill-tempered because his meals are late. He prides himself -on his indifference to food as one of the things that set him apart from -the unspiritual Saxon. You could hardly offend an Irishman more than by -accusing him of having a hearty appetite. His meals are all movable -feasts. Oddly enough, the Anglo-Irishman is quite as unpunctual as the -Celt, if not more so. He assimilates the ways of the Celt, while the -Celt remains untouched by his. The Anglo-Irishman is often as good a -trencherman as his English brother, but he would never think of -disturbing the machinery of Irish life so far as to expect his dinner at -a given time. I have been asked to dine in Dublin and have arrived -punctually, only to find the tradesmen's carts delivering the dinner; -and, having grown accustomed to English ways, I have made a frantic -effort to arrive at the appointed hour for a luncheon-party, only to -find the hostess lying down with toothache, and the drawing-room fire -still unlit. - -To be sure, you may arrive at a house at any hour of the day in Ireland -and fall in for a meal. If you arrive at a time within at all measurable -distance of meal-time, you shall not go forth unfed, although you be -press-ganged to stay. I shall never forget the horror of my Irish -friends when they heard that one was allowed to leave an English house -with the dinner-bell in one's ears. "It must be an _awful_ country," -they said; then, detecting something of guilt, perhaps, in my air, they -ventured: "But that wouldn't happen in an _Irish_ house--not in -_yours_." When I confessed that it had happened in mine they changed the -subject. If they had allowed themselves to speak, they would have said -too much. - -I know an Irishman settled in England--a North of Ireland, that is to -say a Scotch-Irishman, and a man of business--who always has the motor -round for a spin as soon as the dinner-bell rings. He cannot keep his -English servants, and is grieved at their perversity, which would keep -him chained to a hot dining-room on an ideal evening for a motor-run. -His guests stay their hunger with sherry and biscuits while they await -his return. - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Peeps at Many Lands: Ireland, by Katharine Tynan - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT MANY LANDS: IRELAND *** - -***** This file should be named 43623.txt or 43623.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/6/2/43623/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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