Waterford is a busy, clean, dignified old town with large shipping interests, which are conducted upon a wide quay that follows the bank of the River Suir and is faced with substantial walls of stone. The cargoes of the vessels are loaded and unloaded from the roadside. The commercial business consists of the export of bacon, which is famous, barley, and other agricultural produce. A good many live cattle are sent over the channel to feed the enemies of Ireland. The stores and shops are upon streets that run at right angles with the river. The professional men occupy blocks of former residences in the neighborhood of an ancient courthouse which faces a park, usually filled with babies and blue-eyed children playing on the grass. Back in the city the ground rises from the river to a hill that was once crowned with a castle, a cathedral, a monastery, and several other institutions of warfare, charity, learning, and religion. A “Home for the Widows of Deceased Clergymen of the Church of Ireland” occupies the site of the palace of King John. When I dropped a penny in the lap of an old crone, who squatted at the gate, she looked up at me with the winning smile of her race and said: “May you have a happy life, sor, and a paceful death and a favorable joodgment.” There are few beggars in the Irish cities to-day, such as you read about in the tales of travelers who were here twenty or even ten years ago. There are two or three in Dublin hanging around the entrance of the hotel, usually with flowers for sale or something else to offer as compensation for your money, and when one goes into the slums he is apt to be Besides being famous for the best bacon in the United Kingdom, Waterford is the ancestral home of Field Marshal Lord Roberts and that intrepid sailor, Lord Charles Beresford, who was annexed to the United States at a Gridiron dinner during a visit to Washington several years ago. It has a population of about thirty thousand, was founded by the Danish King Sigtryg of the Silken Beard, and for centuries was the seat of the McIvors, the Danish kings, who arrived in 870 and ruled until Strongbow and the other Norman adventurers came over from England in 1169. At the principal corner in the town are the remains of a castle built by Reginald McIvor in 1003, and it still bears his name. The city has endured many sieges and attacks. At one time it was almost entirely destroyed. For centuries it was the most important city in Ireland after Dublin, and is now the fourth seaport. It was loyal to the king when the pretender Perkin Warbeck claimed the throne of England, and Cromwell was unable to reduce it even after a long siege. It was the only city in Ireland that Old Ironsides did not conquer, and thereby it earned its motto, “Urbs Intacta.” Beside Reginald’s Tower very few of the ancient walls remain, but there are two old churches of great interest. One of them, the Protestant Cathedral, stands upon the site of a church built in 1050 and the bishop’s palace and deanery adjoin it. The present structure was erected in 1774 by John Roberts, architect, the great-grandfather of “Bobs,” the hero of Kandahar, now Earl Roberts of the British peerage. He was the architect of several other important buildings in the city. In 1693 a colony of refugee Huguenots came to Waterford from France. They were kindly received and the bishop gave them the choir of an ancient monastic church as a place of worship. It became known as “the French Church” for that reason. Among the immigrants was a family named Sautelles, whose daughter married John Roberts, a rising young architect, in 1744. They had twenty-four children, and both are All of the Roberts family for several generations have been buried within the walls of the old French Church, and it is still used for the tombs of the passing generation of a few old families who possess that enviable privilege. The latest monument bears the date of 1881, and “siveral places are bespoke,” the custodian told me. The ruin is kept with the greatest care. The ivy mantle that covers the walls is tenderly trimmed each spring and fall, the turf is cut frequently, the gravel walks are raked every day, and when I remarked upon this peculiarity not often observed in the crumbling castles and churches of long ago, the custodian exclaimed with pride: “It’s all thrue, as yer honor has said, ivery wurrd of it, an’ it’s as dacent a ruin as you’ll find in all Ireland.” Several illustrious characters in Irish history are buried in the cathedral. Among them are Strongbow and his son who was carved in twain by his amiable father on the field of battle because he acted as if he was afraid of the enemy. It is entirely appropriate that so energetic and comprehensive a person as the first Earl of Pembroke should have two tombs, and no one has any right to complain. He is buried in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, as well as in the cathedral at Waterford, and lies quietly in both places. And only a few days ago I noticed that Edward VII., King of England, was paying a week’s-end visit to his descendant, the present Earl of Pembroke, at his country seat, Wilton House, in Wiltshire. Everything in Waterford seems to be inclosed by high stone walls—even the bishop’s palace and the poorhouse—and “They’re old walls, sir, very old, and were put up when they were needed. They’re not taken down, for they may be needed again. The poor guardians are afraid they’ll lose a pauper, and the bishop some of his prayers.” The jarvey who drove our jaunting car told us that there are nine hundred people in the poorhouse and nine hundred more in the insane asylum, the latter “bein’ mostly women who came there from drinkin’ too much tay”—and the excessive use of that herb is destroying the nerves of the feminine population. I have often been told to “Go to Ballyhack,” and many a time I have heard people wish that somebody they were offended at might go there, but I never had an opportunity to do so until I reached Waterford. Ballyhack is quite an attractive place, a pretty little fishing village of about one hundred people on the bank of the River Suir, eight miles south of the city and nine miles from the sea. It is not considered profane to condemn a person to Ballyhack any more than to Halifax, although you may have a warmer place in your mind. It is a delightful excursion from Waterford in a jaunting car, through fertile farms and velvety meadows, to the town of Passage, whence a boatman will take you across the river to Ballyhack, which is a group of stone buildings, fish-packing houses, and tenements of the fishermen, with a tall, picturesque old tower rising from their midst by the roadside. The top is crumbling, the stones are loose, but the walls for sixty feet or more from the ground are yet perfectly solid and quite as firm as they were when they were erected by the Knights Templar a thousand years ago to defend one of the most convenient landing places on the river. It is believed that the tower of Ballyhack was intended as an outpost for the protection of these two monasteries against pirates and other marauders and that the monks stored their arms and munitions there and a supply of provisions. There Curragmore, the seat of the famous Beresford family, is twelve miles in the opposite direction from Waterford, over hill and down dale, and through a most delightful country. It is an ancient place, for the Beresfords are a very old family, descended from Sir Robert la Poer, who landed with Prince John at Waterford in 1185 and was given a vast tract of land that had belonged to an Irish earl who refused to submit to the sovereignty of the Norman king. That was the fashion in those days when people were not so particular about the rights of others as at present. In this highly moral and righteous generation there’s a court sitting regularly to hear any complaints that a tenant may wish to make concerning the rent exacted for his farm or his cottage. A difference of opinion over a bed of turnips or a rabbit or “any other kind of bird” is argued one side and then the other by the lawyers, and many people are questioned to ascertain who is wrong and who is right. But at the date when the first Beresford arrived at Waterford from over the channel, his majesty the king decided the ownership of the territory in Ireland according to his whims. A frown could cost a man a farm and a smile could win him one. But life has not been all sunshine and taffy for the Beresfords. They have had their troubles like the rest of us. In 1310 the wife of John la Poer was burned as a witch—one of the grandmothers of that much beloved and hearty old sailor, admiral of the North Atlantic fleet of Great Britain, who visited us only a few years ago and made so many friends among the people of America. The motto of the Beresford family is not exactly what one would expect, knowing the character and disposition and habits of the men. It is: “Nil Nisi Cruce” (No Dependence but the Cross). I suppose it is all right for Lord Charles Beresford, the “Fighting Bob” Evans of the British navy, to wear “And there was Bill Beresford,” he continued, “a gallant soldier and the best horseman in Ireland—good, old ‘Ulundi Bill,’ as he was fondly known. There isn’t a man between the four seas to-day that can compare with him, either for a fight or a frolic. Bill Beresford overtopped them all. He did more to improve and encourage horse racing in Ireland than any man that ever lived except it was his father, Lord Henry Beresford, the third Marquis of Waterford. They called him the Nestor of the Irish turf, and he did deeds of daring and devilment in every corner of the world. His lordship was killed in the saddle, the place where he would prefer to die, for he loved horses as much as men, and there was mourning in all Ireland. His son Bill took closely after him. As colonel of the Ninth Lancers, Bill saved the British forces at the battle of Ulundi and was given a big jeweled star and a Victoria Cross for the job. But Charley is just as good a man as Bill. The Beresfords are all fighters. No family in Ireland has drawn the sword so often or so effectively, even if you go back to the invasion of the Normans when they first came into the country. And what’s the matter with the motto, ‘No dependence but the cross’?” Lord “Bill” Beresford was laid to rest on the first day of the twentieth century and his obituaries said that he was the most popular man in Ireland. He was the third husband of that beautiful American woman, Lillian Warren-Hammersley-Churchill-Beresford, originally of Troy, N.Y., and afterward of Washington, widow of the late Duke of Marlborough and still one of the most charming women in London society. There was another brother, who recently died in Mexico, where he lived for many years as a ranchman, and left a large family of half-breed children. Carrick Castle, which stands on the banks of the Suir not far from Waterford, is another beautiful place, built in 1309 by the great Earl of Ormonde. The Carricks were originally Butlers, and trace their descent as far back as Rollo, Duke of Normandy, grandfather of William the Conqueror. Edmund Butler was created Earl of Carrick in 1315, and his descendants have owned this estate ever since his time. The beautiful but unfortunate Anne Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII. and mother of Queen Elizabeth, was born in Carrick Castle and lived there until she was fifteen years old, when she went to England with Sir Thomas Boleyn, her father, and Lord Rochford, her brother, who was executed upon the same scaffold with herself. The Province of Munster might be called properly “the Land of Ruined Castles,” for they are more numerous here than on the banks of the Rhine. You are scarcely ever out of sight of a crumbling tower or a useless gigantic wall wearing a mantle of ivy. Nearly all of these ruins are attributed to Cromwell and his army, who have no defenders, and the religious historians and local guides tell us that they were destroyed by that man of mighty prejudices and purposes in order to plant Protestantism upon the ruins of the papal power in Ireland. Cromwell was undoubtedly guilty of atrocious cruelty and devastation at the cost of thousands of innocent lives and hundreds of millions of property, but he could not have destroyed all these castles and monasteries if he had remained in Ireland ten times as long as he did, because many of them were in ruins when he arrived and many were not built until after his departure. Torna, the Druid, prophesied that a wind from the south Ireland has never been at peace until now. No soil has been fought over so often. The mysterious round towers that we see on the hilltops and in the glens in their lonely majesty are evidence that it was necessary for the overlords to build places of refuge for their servants, and provide means for lighting signal fires to warn them against the enemies that surrounded them. Hallows the hills as, when summer is slowly Fadin’ in darkness, the fall o’ the leaf Makes the woods holy. “Green are the woods though the mountains are gray; Spring is too young to remember old doin’s. Ah! but I wish I was roamin’ to-day In the Island o’ Ruins!” The little station of Doneraile is the getting-off place for visitors who would see one of the most attractive ruins in Ireland, both for its picturesque beauty and for its historical associations. A solitary tower, standing by a small river in a lonely and deserted glen, is all that remains of Kilcolman Castle, one of the greatest strongholds of the Geraldines, afterward and at the time of its destruction the home of Ireland’s greatest poet, Edmund Spenser. He came here in 1580 as private secretary to Earl Grey, then lord lieutenant, and after one of the many rebellions he was given a little more than three thousand acres which surrounded this castle, confiscated from the Earl of Desmond, as one of the “undertakers,” as certain speculators and adventurers were called who agreed to colonize the country with English settlers. It was here and in the neighboring town of Youghal, the home of Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1589 and 1590, that Spenser wrote the “Faerie Queene,” which was published at the expense of Raleigh and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. For this honor the queen proposed to give him quite a liberal pension. Lord Treasurer Burleigh remonstrated, saying: “What? So much for a rhyme?” “Well, then, give him what is reason,” said her majesty. Nothing further was heard of the matter, however, until Spenser sent the Virgin Queen the following epigram: “I was promised on a time To have reason for my rhyme. From that time, until this season, I’ve had neither rhyme nor reason.” Spenser married an obscure relative of the famous Earl of Cork, a Miss Boyle, and lived in the old castle until 1598, when it was sacked and burned by the rebels in the Tyrone uprising. His youngest son perished in the flames and, heart-broken and beggared, he took the rest of his family to London and died within a few months from starvation and grief. He was buried in Westminster Abbey at the expense of the Earl of Essex. It is said that the sins of the fathers are sometimes visited upon their children and children’s children, and this prophecy applies with singular aptness to the Spenser family, for the poet’s grandson was driven from his home at Kilcolman by Cromwell’s men, just as the Desmonds had been driven from the same place by Earl Grey. It was a cheerful change to find a castle without a scar or a crumbling stone and all the modern improvements at Riding House, the Irish estate of the late Earl of Devonshire. He was one of the wealthiest, the ablest, and the most influential of the British nobility, and a conservative leader in the House of Lords, and died, universally lamented, a year or so ago. He was one of the largest landowners in Ireland, having more than a hundred thousand acres rented to tenants, and managed to get along with them without much friction, which is the highest proof that he was a just, honorable, tactful, and conscientious man. There are good landlords in Ireland; there are many of them, and it is not true in every instance that the tenants show little or no appreciation of their generosity, although, unfortunately, there have been some conspicuous cases of that kind. Several large property owners, who have endeavored to treat their tenants with kindness, have lowered their rents and made generous concessions to them, have been accused of cowardice by the very people they tried to please, and have been treated very badly. But the Duke of Devonshire was not one of those. He had honest, brave, fair- Lismore Castle, Waterford County; Irish Seat of the Duke of Devonshire Riding House is near the town of Lismore, and, on the principle that to him who hath shall be given, it was inherited by the Duke of Devonshire in 1753 through his wife, Charlotte, daughter of Richard Boyle, fourth Earl of Cork, who was a munificent patron of literature and the arts and the friend of Pope, the poet. The Cork family is one of the most famous in the history of Ireland, although not one of the oldest. The first earl lived on Cork Hill, where the Castle at Dublin stands. He was a native of Hereford County, England, and was born in 1566. He studied law at the Middle Temple, London, and was called to the Bar, but, having no clients, he embarked for Ireland as an adventurer. After a while he obtained the favor and protection of Queen Elizabeth, which enabled him to amass considerable wealth and won him his title. His brother Michael, who went to Ireland with him, became Bishop of Waterford. Richard, a nephew, became Archbishop of Tuam, and his son, Michael, became Archbishop of Armagh. The second Earl of Cork was a distinguished figure in camp, court, and in the literary world. He was lord lieutenant of Ireland under Cromwell. He was known as “the great Earl of Cork,” and lies in the old Church of St. Mary at Youghal with his figure at full length in marble in the center of an enormous monument that covers a quarter of an acre of wall. There is a duplicate quite as large in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. The present Earl of Cork was the largest landholder in this section except the Duke of Devonshire, but has sold most of his estate under the provisions of the Wyndham Land Act of 1903. The Devonshire estate is still intact, and, as the late duke had no sons, was inherited by Victor Cavendish, his nephew. The late Earl, Richard Edmund St. Lawrence Boyle, was an aid-de-camp to Queen Victoria, with whom he had a warm friendship. He was devoted to her all his life and was her master of horse and master of buckhounds for many years. He married in 1853 a sister of the present Earl of “Tipperary is the deadest town in all Ireland,” said a bookseller of that place, of whom we were buying some postcards. “I don’t believe there was ever a deader town than Tip-rar-ry [for that is the way they pronounce it] and everybody is going to America who can get away.” And that seemed to be the prevailing sentiment among the people I talked with. It is the most pessimistic community I found in the country, without even a single good word for their own town. “There’s no business outside of cattle and dairying,” said another merchant. “Trade is so dull that the shopkeepers are loafing half the day.” But the people seem to keep up their interest in politics, and that they have some money left is evident, because at a meeting here, the day before my arrival, £95 was collected in a few minutes for the expense fund of the parliamentary Irish party. Outside, in the streets, there was a good deal of activity. It was market day and the farmers from all the surrounding country were in town to sell their produce and buy a stock of supplies for the ensuing week, but there was no vehicle, not even a jaunting car, at the railway station to take us to the hotel, and evidently nobody was expected. So we had to do the best we could and succeeded in persuading a farmer who was there with an “inside car” to carry us and our luggage, which he managed to do by sitting on the shafts himself. And afterward when Tipperary lies in the midst of a lovely country, more level than that we had been traveling through for the past three weeks, but there are only a few patches of timber and a few gentle slopes and no peat bogs so far as we could see from the railway train. The landscape reminded me of the Western Reserve of Ohio, with the exception that the Silievenarmick Hills rise in the background to the height of nine hundred and one thousand feet. The Aherlow River waters the plain and runs through the town. There doesn’t seem to be much cultivated ground in the neighborhood, but there are long stretches of meadow in which the farmers were cutting the hay, and we can perceive the perfume as we pass through them if we stand at the open window of the car. Alternating with the meadows are fine pastures, where large herds of sleek and fat cattle and many yearling colts and foal mares are feeding. There are several large stock farms in the neighborhood, and, as it was the season for county fairs when we were there, the Tipperary farmers are raking in prizes for all kinds of stock. In the town is a creamery which, we were told, is the largest in Ireland. It employs one hundred and twenty hands and its butter is shipped almost entirely to London. The most interesting feature of Tipperary is the new town lying on the outskirts of the old, which represents an exciting incident in Irish history. During the land war of 1887 the leaders of the Irish party selected several landlords as examples for boycotting for the purpose of attracting attention to the conditions in the country and creating public opinion. This was called “The Plan of Campaign.” Among the places selected as storm centers were the Ponsonby estate near Cork, the Vandaleur estate in County Clare, the Defrayne estate in Roscommon, the Massaure estate in County Louth, and the Smith Barry estate in Tipperary. These estates were selected as battle grounds because the landlords were treating the Arthur Hugh Smith Barry, the landlord who was selected as an awful example at Tipperary, is descended from the Earl of Barrymore, whose title expired when the direct male line became extinct forty or fifty years ago. He came into possession by inheritance of a large tract of land near Cork and another tract covering between eight and nine thousand acres in this vicinity, which paid him an annual revenue of £7,368. His first wife was a sister of the present Lord Dunraven. His second and present wife was Elizabeth Wadsworth Post, a sister of former Congressman James Wadsworth of Geneseo, N.Y., and was the widow of a Mr. Post at the time of her marriage with Mr. Barry in 1889. They have a beautiful home at Fota on Fota Island, in Cork Harbor, near Queenstown, and a town residence in Berkeley Square, London. Mr. Barry has been a member of parliament and has served the government in different capacities with great credit to himself and usefulness to his country. For that reason the old title of his family was revived in 1902 and he was elevated to the peerage as Lord Barrymore. The courage and determination he exhibited during the fight that was made upon him by the Land League was one of the reasons for giving him the honor. The boycott was managed on behalf of the Land League by William O’Brien, then, as now, member of parliament for that district. Under the latter’s direction between five and six hundred tenants of Mr. Barry stopped paying rent. Some were actually too poor to do so; others were perfectly able, but they all went in together and made a common cause and boycotted their landlord, who promptly took steps to evict them. Mr. O’Brien and other leaders of the Land League appealed to patriotic Irishmen all over the world and raised between £40,000 and £50,000—nearly $250,000—in America, Australia, Ireland, and else There was a general and generous response to the appeal to the patriotism of Ireland, and people in this country who had no money gave material and labor to help the cause. Carpenters and stone masons, bricklayers, and other mechanics came to Tipperary from all parts of Ireland to work on the buildings, without wages, and within a short time all of the evicted tenants of the Barry estate were comfortably housed, free of rent, while his revenues ceased entirely and the boycott was complete. It was a significant illustration of the unity of purpose of the common people of Ireland; but, unfortunately, the leaders of the party quarreled before the demonstration was complete. The death of Charles S. Parnell in 1891, about eighteen months after the boycott was undertaken on the Barry estate, caused a split in the Irish party which continued until a few years ago. The effect of this division was to demoralize their followers at Tipperary, and the tenants of the Barry estate began gradually to slip back to their old homes and resume paying their rents. The houses at New Tipperary which were built at that time now belong very largely to Stafford O’Brien, who furnished the land upon which they were built. Others are still the property of the Land League, and the rent, which is collected by a committee, goes into the parliamentary fund. Many people at Tipperary now declare that the “kick-up,” as they call the quarrel between the leaders of the Land League, ruined the town, because it broke the boycott and compelled the tenants to surrender to the landlords, who have had them under their heels ever since. Several people told me that the Tipperary also claims the authorship of that ancient and beautiful old air, “The Wearing of the Green.” It is one of the oldest of Irish melodies, but only modern words are sung to it now, and there are several versions. That which Henry Grattan Curran, who is an excellent authority, claims to be the original, was written at Tipperary and runs as follows: “I met with Napper Tandy, And he took me by the hand, Saying how is old Ireland? And how does she stand? She’s the most distressful country That ever yet was seen, And they’re hanging men and women For the wearing of the green. I care not for the rose, When bleak winds round us whistle Neither down nor crimson shows; But, like hope to him that’s friendless, When no joy around is seen, O’er our graves with love that’s endless Blooms our own immortal green.” The late Dion Boucicault used to sing another version in one of his plays, which he said was made over from a street ballad that he once heard in Dublin. He was not able to get all of the words and filled in what was lacking himself, as follows: “Oh, Paddy, dear, an’ did ye hear the news that’s goin’ round? The Shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground: No more St. Pathrick’s Day we’ll keep, his color can’t be seen, For there’s a bloody law agin’ the wearing of the green. I met with Napper Tandy and he tuk me by the hand And he said, ‘How’s poor ould Ireland and how does she stand? She’s the most disthressful counthry ever yet was seen, For they’re hangin’ men and women there for wearing of the green.’ “Oh, if the color we must wear is England’s cruel red, Let it remind us of the blood that Ireland has shed. Then pull the shamrock from your hat and throw it on the sod, Ah, never fear, ’twill take root there, though under foot ’tis trod. When the laws can stop the blades of grass from growin’ as they grow. And when the leaves in summer time their color dare not show, Then I will change the color, too, that I wear in my caubeen; But till that day, plaze God, I’ll stick to wearing of the green.” The Earl of Lismore is the Lord of Tipperary, and the head of the O’Callaghan family, who were formerly kings of Munster and are descended from a famous Milesian prince. The various generations have taken an active part in the affairs of Ireland since history began. They have been bishops, statesmen, lawyers, soldiers, sailors, and priests; they have married the daughters of the most prominent houses in the kingdom and their sisters have been the wives and mothers of dukes. They live at Clogheen, in the famous Sharbally Castle, and occupy land which has been in the family for many centuries. |