Mary Gorges

Ross is only separated from the mainland by a narrow cut through a morass, which gives it its claim to be an island.

This division is probably artificial, and made in former days to strengthen the fortifications of the Castle. A carriage road from the town of Killarney crosses the small connecting bridge and brings the tourist under the walls of Ross Castle, where there is a landing-place for those who come by water.

Ross Castle is still a splendid old fortress, far less injured by time or mischance than most of its contemporaries in Kerry. A tall and stately building, it is seen from far, dominating Lough Leane and adding additional charm to the view, with its massive buttresses and battlements, reminders of the old fighting days. It is but a short distance between Ross and Muckross, yet the character of the scene is utterly changed. Say what we will of the other lakes, Lough Leane remains the lake of enchantment.

Ross is a very ancient Castle, built by some far-back O’Donoghue, the precise date unknown. Within is a spiral staircase of stone mounting to the top, from whence a marvellous panorama lies before you.

In 1652 Ross Castle was held by Lord Muskerry for the King, during the Parliamentary wars, against General Ludlow. It was well garrisoned and provisioned, and the defenders were prepared vigorously to repel the foe, yet they surrendered almost at once. There was an old prophecy that Ross Castle would never be taken till warships were seen on the lake, and when the garrison beheld the boats which General Ludlow had built and conveyed overland approaching to attack, they yielded. The prophecy was fulfilled: it was useless to fight against fate. But it is more to legendary than historical lore that Ross Castle owes the fascination which surrounds it.

The guides of Killarney deserve mention here, for they add to the enjoyment of the various excursions, knowing every legend, each association, the origin of every name, and are even capable of inventing on the spur of the moment romances the most picturesque, wonders the most thrilling, discerning at a glance on whom to expend their powers of imagination. “All sorts and conditions of men” come under their ken. In the tourist season scarce a land but has its representative, to some of whom Ireland was a sealed page till they listened to the tales of Killarney from her guides.

Here they point to you the very window from which the great O’Donoghue leaped into the lake below. There he reigns in the regions of enchantment, greater and happier than in his earthly sovereignty. Once in every seven years on a May morning, before the first beams of the sun have arisen over the mountain tops, the sweetest strains of fairy music are heard, and the great chieftain may be seen on a splendid snow-white charger, shod with silver shoes, riding over the lake, preceded by a joyous band of youths and maidens scattering flowers before him. Well it is for the mortal who sees him; prosperity will follow from that day forth.

Just, generous, and greatly beloved were the O’Donoghues of Ross, and their memory is perpetuated among a people who do not easily forget. Wander where you will, you find some association with the name, particularly among rock and crag on the Lower Lake, of which O’Donoghue’s Horse is the most remarkable. This rock has been fretted and worn away by the action of the waters into a curious semblance of a horse in the act of drinking. Then there is O’Donoghue’s prison, his table, his pulpit—each with its story.

You will be told, too, how at the deepest part of this lake, more than 60 fathoms down, at a spot between Ross and Innisfallen, a great carbuncle may be seen, which on a dark night lights up the rocks at the bottom of the lake, and shows the palaces and towers of the ancient city which the waters now cover.

Ross is the largest island on the lake. It contains about 80 acres. On the southern point is a famous copper mine, opened in 1804 by Colonel Hall, who found clear proof that it had been worked at a very remote period. Rude stone hammers of very ancient make were discovered—Danes’ hammers, the people call them—and the traces of fire were found. The vein, however, gave out after four years, during which time, says Crofton Croker, “nearly £60,000 worth of ore was disposed of at Swansea, some cargoes producing £40 per ton.”

The country round the lakes is very rich in ores of various kinds. Lead ore has been discovered, and the mountains abound with iron. Specimens of ore which contain tin are also found.

Killarney has treasures, however, which better suit the witchery of her beauty. Pearls are found in Lough Leane, and still more often in the River Laune, which runs out of it. These are, of course, very inferior to the Oriental jewel, but now and again a fine specimen is obtained. “A little Kerry pearle” was not considered an unworthy present to a great man in 1756; also “a dozen Kerry stones,” these probably being the beautiful amethysts found in the cliffs near Kerry Head. These have always been valued. A set of ear-rings, a necklace, and other ornaments composed of these amethysts were presented to Queen Caroline (wife of George II.) by the Countess of Kerry, and most graciously received. A like gracious reception was given to an Irish pearl presented by the Bishop of Limerick to the great Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1074.

THE ISLAND OF INNISFALLEN.
In the lower lake of Killarney. It once possessed a monastery where the “Annals of Innisfallen,” now at the Bodleian, were written.

Very brilliant are the “Kerry diamonds,” and very pretty, but valueless save to the children who pick them up, and perhaps to that fairy world whose standards are not the sordid ones of mortals. To them these lovely crystals, whether clear or coloured, may be the true treasure.

Beautiful Innisfallen, with hill and glen, creek and harbour, and cliffs overhung by trees shading the many bays. The Gem of Killarney it is called. “Not heaven’s reflex, but a bit fallen out of heaven itself,” were Macaulay’s words, and they express the feeling called forth by its rich verdure, its wonders of foliage and of colour, the ineffable beauty which clothes it as a mantle. Yet so great are its contrasts that in this island of 24 acres are woods as gloomy as the ancient Druidical forests, thick with giant ash and enormous hollies.

As you approach the island you seem to draw near such a forest, so close are these great trees, extending into the water. On landing, you find they encircle a lawn of the deepest and most vivid green. Open glades through the trees give enchanting vistas—the lofty peaks of Toomies and Glena, the misty summits of the Purple Mountain, Ross Castle and its wooded shores, sunny islands and sparkling waters, sometimes so still as to reflect the woods and mountains as in a mirror. In the morning hour the mountains bordering on the Lower Lake are left in shadow, but as the day goes on the sun glides imperceptibly along the line of the great chain, and darts his rays on that side of the mountains which lies next to the lake. All their bold irregularities are then revealed—their protruding rocks, their deep glens, and the lake is illuminated amid its dark and wooded isles by the long gleams which pass athwart its waves.

At such hours it looks too fair a world for sin and sorrow, but yonder stands the Castle, with ruined battlements and many a grim sign of the stormy past, while fair Innisfallen itself contains a ruin where once holy men maintained a warfare equally deadly against the powers of evil, though fought with no mortal weapons.

Little remains of the Abbey of Innisfallen, founded in the sixth century by St. Finian. Even the walls are levelled save for the remains of an oratory, whose western gable contains a doorway with rich decorations. This monastery, however decayed, will always be famous, because the Annals of Innisfallen were written here.

The original work is in the Bodleian Library. It is on parchment and in medium quarto, and contains fifty-seven leaves. Extracts from the Old Testament and a history of the ancient world down to the arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland in 432 form the earlier part. From this period it deals exclusively with the affairs of Ireland, terminating with 1319. It seems to have been the production of two monks, one carrying it to 1216, the other continuing it to 1320. It is one of the earliest of Irish histories, and considered by savants as taking high rank among them.

In 1100 the Abbey was plundered by Mildwin O’Donoghue of a great treasure of gold, silver, and rich goods of the adjacent country, which had been deposited there as secure sanctuary. Many of the clergy were slain by the MacCarthys, “But,” writes the monk, “God soon punished this act of sacrilege and impiety by bringing many of its authors to an untimely end.”

Well, there is peace now in fair Innisfallen. The visitor bears away its impress with the memory of one of the fairest spots on earth.

Glena, the “glen of good fortune,” is one of the most eagerly sought out beauty spots of Killarney. Glena Bay is the first part of the Lower Lake if it is entered from the Long Range, but by whatever way you reach it the picture which meets the eye is unsurpassed.

The mountains of Glena and Toomies are densely wooded to their base, the trees hanging over their sides and coming down in rich luxuriance to the water’s edge. A very forest of the finest arbutus, with berry and blossom together in autumn, with oak, ash, pine, birch and alder, white thorn, yew, and holly, it must be seen to realize the colour effect or the matchless tintings of gorse and heather, a great mosaic quivering in the sunshine. The varieties of this immense scenery of forest are impossible to describe, the woods extending about six miles in length, and from half a mile to a mile and a half in breadth, while the inequalities of the ground produce wondrous effects of light and shadow.

Glena is all soft loveliness, but rugged rock and crag, and the stern grandeur of Torc Mountain on the other side, strike again that minor chord never far from Killarney’s brightest scenes.

Lough Leane has upwards of thirty isles, large and small, and as the boat is rowed past Glena shore you see them in all their varied form and colour, from Ross to tiny Mouse Island. It is a fair sight. There is a little bay at the foot of the Toomies where you can land to reach O’Sullivan’s Cascade, one of the greatest of the Killarney waterfalls, not only from its size, but from the peculiar formation of the bed down which it dashes. It really consists of three falls. “The uppermost, passing over a bridge of rocks, falls about 20 feet perpendicularly into a natural basin; then, bursting between two hanging rocks, the torrent hastens down a second precipice into a second receptacle, from which it rolls over into the lowest chamber of the fall. It is about 70 feet high. The roar of the descending water can be heard from afar, and is almost deafening when near. Beneath a projecting rock overhanging the lowest basin is a grotto, with a seat rudely cut in the rock. From this little grotto the view of the cascade is peculiarly beautiful. It appears a continued flight of three foamy stories. The recess is overshadowed by an arch of foliage so thick as to interrupt the admission of light.” The forest about Toomies is still the haunt of the old red deer of Ireland, and a grand stag hunt is occasionally organized, the cries of the hounds, the shouting of the hunters, the firing of the signalling cannon, combining to awake the mountain echoes for many miles around. It is a cruel sport, though the stag is now, as a rule, saved from death. Yet its gallant attempts to save itself, its struggles to get free from the cordon of enemies around, its agonies of terror as, bounding for refuge to the heights, it is confronted by shouting men, and turned to confront the savage pack, are cruel enough. It leaps from rock to rock and chasm to chasm with sobbing breath and big tears, and plunges into the lake in desperation, to be met by the boats watching for it. Of late years it is set free, but it is not sentimentality to imagine that the grim experience it has passed through will render the life given to it a thing of terror, haunted by the bay of the hounds and the shouts of the hunters.