Michael Myers Shoemaker

The Ancient City of Galway—Quaint People, Curious Houses, Vile Hotel—Parsonstown—Wingfield House—Leap Castle and its Ghosts—Ffranckfort Castle—Clonmacnoise—Holy Cross Abbey.

As we enter Galway from Recess, the roads become anything but agreeable; there are many crossings and bridge backs which throw us from our seats, and without extreme care on the part of the chauffeur would destroy the car. Fortunately the weather is moist and there is little dust, which in Galway is most disagreeable, the soil being limestone.

If you would see an ancient Irish city, purely Irish and undefiled by the progress of this latter day, come to Galway, where she sits close down by the sea. It is evidently to this section what Paris is to all France. There may have been in other times those of the upper classes here, but they do not appear on her streets to-day. Narrow and winding, they are lined with ancient houses many of which bear pretentious coats of arms and much carving, but all are now the dwelling-places of the people.

The streets are jammed as this is Saturday evening and we move cautiously along. At one point, owing to instructions from Boyse to turn to the right and from me to go to the left, the motor car almost runs over the pavement, scaring a buxom dame half to death. "'Twas the mercy of God the dur was open behint us, or ye'd 'ave smashed mesel' and the childer entirely." But at the same time she laughs and gives us a "God bless ye." While we are learning the route from her, a perfect Irish gentleman, properly drunk, reels up and leaning over the front of the car gazes at us in a most affectionate fashion. Barefooted, rosy-cheeked urchins are running in all directions, numerous women stand around doing up their hair, and there is more of the ancient tongue to be heard than at any other point except in Achill.

As a child I learned a lot of it, meaninglessly, from the old servants at home, and recalling many phrases here have at times launched them forth, generally with dire results.

To-day as we wend our way slowly through these crowded streets, it greets our ears on all sides.

The quaint figures which one encountered in America thirty years ago must have come from here. Boarding ship in yonder harbour they landed on our shores absolutely unchanged and unique. One never sees them nowadays. Even in Ireland they are to be met with only in the remote districts; they are here in the good city of Galway but you will look for them in vain farther east.

The story of the first appearance of my dear old nurse upon the streets of our city has become a household tale with us. Just in from the "owld country," she decked herself in her best for her Sunday's outing. A gown of the most vivid emerald green whose skirt spread over a voluminous hoop was composed of four huge flounces bound in bright red; a huge bonnet of green and blue circled around her anything but classic countenance—certainly her nose could never have been called "Roman"; she carried an orange and green sunshade. Her appearance created a sensation which almost ended in a riot. She was too much for the American youth as he was for her, and she fled homeward pursued by a howling mob of the gamins.

I must pay tribute to the women who have come to us from this island,—respected and self-respecting, they have proven most excellent servants, with never a shadow of immorality amongst any of them, thoroughly honest and upright, and during months of absence, and sometimes years, left in entire charge of the households of which they kept as perfect watch and ward as though they were indeed their own, and, in fact, they soon learned to look upon the dwellings of their employer as home, with no desire to change unless to marry and set up their own firesides, and even then they never have forgotten and often return to the places where they lived so long through days of sorrow and days of mirth, not only servants but friends in the best acceptation of that word.

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Ffranckfort Castle

Ffranckfort Castle

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While Galway is a town of but some fourteen thousand people, the crowds on its streets to-night would convey the impression of a much greater population. They simply swarm all over the place.

The city dates far enough back to have been mentioned by Ptolemy, and probably took its name from the Gaels or foreign merchants who once lived here. Galway appears on the pages of history in 1124 A.D. and from that date onward it was fought for by every tribe of the island. Just hereabouts there were thirteen tribes who strictly guarded themselves against all intercourse with the native Irish. Indeed there was a law that "none bearing an O or Mac in his name shall struttle one swaggere through the streets of Galway."

But those days are past and there must certainly be many who bear such prefixes to their names who are strutting these streets in this year of grace 1907.

This was one of the most important seaports trading with Spain, and there may be seen, even at this date, Spanish traits and features intermingled with the Celtic, and many of its ancient houses hold the touch of the South in their lines. Galway was loyal to King Charles and suffered horribly from the forces of Cromwell in consequence.

While there are quaint structures still to be found in the streets they require looking for and one must be prepared to endure much squalor and dirt and endless smells which will not recall the perfume bazaars of the Orient, though it has always struck me that the perfumes of the Orient were thickly strewed that they might drown out much more horrible smells than were ever to be found in Ireland.

The most interesting and famous of all the old houses is that of the Lynch family whose faÇade holds some curious carvings, notably that of a monkey carrying off a child, one of the children of the family having been saved from death by fire by a pet monkey.

From the window of this house in 1493, its owner, James Lynch, hanged his own son for murder.

Legend and truth are probably greatly mixed in the story told to-day. The murder was that of a young Spaniard of whom the son was jealous, and whom he stabbed to death. His mother besought her kinsfolk to save him and them the disgrace of a public death by hanging, the father being determined that the law should be obeyed. They met and roused the populace which collected in a multitude outside the old house, to-day so full of its noisy poor. The father, finding it would be impossible to conduct his son to the place of execution, led him to one of the great windows high up in the mansion and from thence launched him into eternity at the rope's end. The people, awed into silence by his stern justice, dispersed in quiet to their homes. To-day the street is called Dead Man's Lane, and it is claimed that the tablet with skull and cross-bones and its motto, "Remember deathe—vanite of vanite and all is but vanite," was placed there to commemorate the dark occurrence, but if so it was not until more than a century had rolled by.

It is said that this stern, sorrowing father never appeared in public after his execution of his son.

The family of Lynch appeared here from Austria in 1274 and until 1654 was of great prominence; then it vanished entirely.

The old house rises in state still from its squalid surroundings and the gloom upon its face seems to come as much from its present degradation as from its sad history.

With all its dirt and squalor Galway is possessed of greater interest than any other Irish city, though with the hurried march of time in these latter days, the antiquary must search more and more each year if he would discover aught.

One of the most singular and interesting parts is to be found in the district just outside the walls and on the river. It is called Claddagh, and consists of a colony of fishermen numbering with their families some five or six thousand. Their marketplace adjoins one of the city's ancient gates. They are a well ordered and governed people, having a king or mayor elected from time to time whose word is law and from whose decision they never appeal; neither will they acknowledge any other authority. They are religious and will not sail away nor fish on Sunday or feast day.

At one period they were sufficient unto themselves and always married in their own set. That is changed now and neither does one often see the old and picturesque costume of their women,—a red gown and blue mantle.

However, even to-day their part of Galway is cleaner and more wholesome than its other sections.

Its people are very superstitious and will not fish nor permit others to do so unless the day and hour be lucky. Some have tried to break through this but were forced to give up the attempt, as their lives were in danger.

An Irishman in the city stated that times were very bad, they "had had very good crops and hence could not raise the cry of famine and so bring in the cash from England and America. When they can do that every one is well off and happy."

But, as I have stated, squalor, dirt, and evil smells so abound that one is fairly driven off and away from this quaintest of the Irish towns.

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Photo by W. Leonard

Clonmacnoise

You may spend a time in her old church of St. Nicholas, but if you enter the adjoining graveyard the terrible neglect will drive you forth in horror, a horror in no way quieted by a sojourn at the awful railway hotel, a place so vilely dirty that nothing save acute hunger forces us to remain an instant within its doors. I ask the waiter for a toothpick. "Well, really, sor, we have none, but here's one of me own, which I'll lend yez." In the search for it he pulls from the same pocket a dirty handkerchief and a stump of a clay pipe. My laughter brings a twinkle to his eyes and procures us a much better luncheon than we had reason, from the appearance of the dirty table, to expect.

There is no excuse for this hotel. It is a disgrace to the railroad which owns and runs it. These railway hotels are generally cleanly and well kept. Certainly such is the case in England and Scotland and in the west and north of Ireland. But in Galway the broken-down, dilapidated, and filthy state of affairs is disgusting in the extreme. One hesitates to eat anything which comes from the kitchen, and we confine ourselves to boiled ham and cheese.

From Galway our route lies eastward to Parsonstown and had we followed the map would have been simple enough, but the advice of sundry home-going men, all somewhat the worse for liquor, sent us astray several times, but in a motor that is of little moment.

Parsonstown, or Birr, lies directly east of Galway and en route we pass by Lorrha, where I stop a moment to inspect its ancient abbey. It is of interest to some Americans as having been the burial-place for centuries of a well-known family, the Carrolls. There are no monuments or tablets, as dead have been buried upon dead within the ruined walls for years on years, even unto to-day, as a fresh mound with a half-withered wreath of flowers upon it testifies.

Birr Castle was the original seat of the Carrolls, but they appear to have owned numerous others in this locality, such as Leap and Ffranckfort.

The life of the dwellers must have been very crude and rude, but they were all very tenacious of their right of sepulchre with their forefathers. Each old will directs, after kindly returning the "soul to the God who gave it," that their bodies be buried "in the chapel adjoining the Abbey of St. Dominick in Lorrha," and so it was done; but, as I have stated, years have gone and other dead have claimed the same graves in this holy spot, until the place, now a tangle of ivy and wild brier, is buried deeply and heaped high with the silent sleepers whose rest is rarely disturbed by a passer from the great outer world of the living.

In the surrounding graveyard the dead sleep closely together and the spot is better cared for than is usually the case. Apparently they are not so soon forgotten, at least, one is not horrified by the appalling desolation and abandonment usually to be found in such places in rural Ireland. Of course the people are very poor, but at least they could lock the doors of the vaults and cut the grass over the graves of their dead. It may be that they consider that nothing is necessary or can be done once they pass beneath the sod of "holy ground," that, having been consecrated by the church, any touch of man's hand would be a desecration thereof. Be that as it may the effects upon one from another land is horrible. Such is not the case here in Lorrha, I am pleased to state.

A quick run of nine miles brings us to the quaint old city of Birr, just as the night closes in.

Birr is an eminently respectable town. Its streets are wide and its houses have a delightful seclusion which reminds one of the main square in Frederick City, Maryland. There are arched doorways shaded by climbing vines and bearing great brass knockers. There are family cats every here and there, and ancient dames peer at you from behind lace curtains. In its main square at the base of the column to the Duke of Cumberland and his victory of Culloden, one of the present citizens of Birr is declaiming. He does not declaim long; truth compels me to state that he is tight, and that even now two servants of the law are escorting him into the calaboose. Pity 'tis, 'tis true. But this is Saturday night and a man must have his little enjoyments.

We descend at the door of an hotel whose name sets us whistling, "Mr. Dooley's Hotel." I think it fairly good—Boyse does not agree with me but withal we are very comfortable in it.

Birr is the very centre of Ireland, and probably takes airs to herself in consequence.

We arrive here very weary to-night. There are days when motoring is not all joy—this has been one. The lime dust and cold winds around Galway have cut our faces into segments, and I find a bath, an open fire, and easy chair too attractive to resist, but Boyse has gone off in a jaunting-car eight miles to see some friends and arrange for a visit to-morrow to an ancient castle where a real ghost still holds forth. We shall see what we shall see, but it would take more than a ghost to keep me awake to-night, much less to make me drive sixteen miles to call, but it seems nothing to Boyse who does not return until late—too late to talk—and so good-night.

Morning dawns in mist and rain, which continue off and on all day long. Birr is as silent as only an Irish or English town knows how to be on a Sunday,—every shop is closed, the houses show scarce any sign of life, while Cumberland upon his column seems to offer an apology for being in gala array on the first day of the week.

Boyse's friends near here have bidden us to luncheon after an inspection of that ancient seat of the O'Carrolls, Leap Castle (pronounced "Lep"). So rain and mist defying, we roll off at ten A.M. leaving Yama and our kit behind us. The roads are slippery and the car skids a little, but the chauffeur is alive to the danger, which is minimised to the fullest extent by chains on the wheels. Some ten miles out we turn into a spacious park and are welcomed at the door of the mansion of "Wingfield" by the daughters of the house, three lovely Irish women, and I know of no land which can produce more beautiful women than Ireland; striking forms, faces, and figures are the rule not the exception in this land of the harp. There is a type of reddish golden hair, fair clear complexion, and sky-blue eyes which is especially beautiful to my thinking; it belongs to the upper classes, at least I have never noted it in a daughter of the people,—there the dark blue-grey eyes and black hair, or pale straw-coloured hair combined with palest of blue eyes, prevail.

I have a painting by our poet-painter, T. Buchanan Read, which shows the type I speak of, yet where did he ever see it? Certainly not amongst those emigrants who came to America in his time. The painting, called The Harp of Erin,[5] represents a white-clad woman chained to a rock in the sea, whose waves dash up around her. Reddish golden hair floats over her shoulders, which are draped in a green scarf. Blue eyes of the colour of the deepest heaven gaze mournfully upon you and her arms are raised to play upon a harp. The artist was in his happiest mood when he painted this picture and for it he refused a large price, expecting at the period of the Fenian excitement, in the sixties, to have it lithographed and so realise vast sums, but fate in some form, how I know not, intervened, and his idea was never carried out, or the Fenian bubble burst before it could be accomplished.

But to return to Wingfield. We gather in two of the ladies and speed off over the slippery highway to Leap Castle. Now Leap, I would have you know, is THE ghost castle of Ireland, owning more spooks to the room than all the others together. En route thither we pass under the shadow of "Knockshigowna" or hill of the fairies, and it would seem on this shadowy morning that the ruin on its summit shows signs of a strange agitation; perhaps the shades are aware of our approach to their favourite castle in the valley and trust that we may tarry until night falls and their dominion maintains,—for until then, they must stay where they are, high up on yonder hill, which is the centre of all the fairy romance and legend of the island. The forest is dense here and we roll under the bending boughs, heavy with the night's dew, and glittering in the sunlight. At the end of a long green tunnel the tower of Leap Castle blocks the way.

Leap stands overlooking a fair valley, a great square tower to which have been added wings on either side. It was one of the most ancient seats of the O'Carrolls, who seem to have left a most excellent memory hereabouts as expert sheep-stealers. All of these ancient castles were composed of simply one great strong tower. Everything else is of much later date. We have seen a dozen such in the past few days. Leap is no exception. Fortunately its owner, Mr. D.; is at home and welcomes us to what has been in his family since the days of the Restoration, a period when many of the Irish castles passed into the hands of Englishmen.

We enter the lower floor of the great tower, which in the days of the O'Carrolls was evidently the great hall, where many of those weird, barbarous feasts one associates with such places must have occurred. To-day its appearance is peaceful enough. Pictures anything but terrible surround us and no ghosts can stand this clear light of day.

From its windows you enjoy a superb panorama, and from its terrace one of its ancient owners leapt his horse when pursued by some enemy—hence the name. He was a rider superior to any even Ireland can show at the present time for the drop is quite thirty feet.

The wings of the castle flank the tower on either hand, but aside from containing cheery rooms with much fine old furniture, are not of interest, at least when compared to the hall, around which a gallery circles in the second story, to which stairs in the thickness of the walls conduct one. In one of the angles there is an oubliette to anywhere below,—in another a stair mounts to a chapel in the top, dismantled and disused now save by the ghost of a priest which walks here with his head under his arm, and it is reported that one of the chatelaines of the castle fled here from following footsteps which she could not understand, and flinging the great door to behind her used her fair arm as a staple, only to have it broken in two by a force no mortal could withstand. She fainted, but before losing consciousness saw passing by her the shadow of the headless monk. If you sleep in one of those chambers below there you will awaken to find your hand drawn over the bedside and blood slowly dripping from your fingers,—there are stains on the old oaken flooring even now. Which ghost does that is not stated.

No direct heir ever inherits "Leap," and when misfortune is following fast on the footsteps of the family, a ghostly sheep appears and with a claw of great length (that kind of sheep have "claws") scratches on the panels of the great oaken portals. Every properly self-respecting house in Ireland has a ghost, but Leap has more than its share, and no peasant of the island would venture to pass a night alone in the dungeon under its great tower. There was nothing ghostly about the very good Irish whiskey which we had there,—so toasting all ghosts malign or beneficent and bidding our host a thankful adieu, we depart under the dripping skies and return to peaceful-looking Wingfield, only to learn that it too has its ghost, but a friendly one, being a great white goose which walks around the walls of the home park and so wards off all evil from the occupants.

A cheerful luncheon with agreeable people will banish any amount of spooks. It is so in this case. Wingfield could never be called a lonely place. Each of its fair chatelaines has a pet dog of her own and there are half a dozen stray dogs belonging to no one and every one. They are not allowed in any room unless they find the door open and in Ireland doors are rarely closed. If the dining-room door is open at meal-time and they about, it's first come first served, with odds on the dogs,—ditto at tea-time,—in fact, any old time or meal, and there are dogs enough to fill all vacancies and be present upon all occasions.

It is a merry meal we have, but the best of things must end and so we rise to depart. As I step forward to open the door for the ladies I find the knob gone and the act impossible; but we troop around by another way and settle ourselves before a bright fire in the drawing-room.

We are told by our hostess that the parson came to call the other day. The doorbell was broken but the door open. Upon entering the drawing-room and closing the door the knob came off in his hand. In the meantime numbers of dogs had collected in the hall. Remembering that the family were probably all out, he went to the bell to summon help, when that handle came off also; going to the window to get out, he could not keep it up until he had called into service a small table; thus he managed to tumble out on to the lawn amidst ten or a dozen barking dogs not at that moment on duty inside. He has not called since.

However to my thinking Irish dogs are good-natured.

Warm-hearted hospitality reigns in that house and may good luck and happiness for ever abide therewith.

After luncheon we start again with our fair guides on a visit to another famous house, Ffranckfort Castle, some eleven miles away, a veritable moated grange owned by Major Rolleston.

Our way lies through the forest. There are few hills hereabouts and no sign-posts to any of the roads, so that one might well lose the route, and but for our fair companions we certainly should have done so several times since we lost sight of the hill of the fairies and entered these labyrinths of the forest.

Turning at last through an ancient gateway, we see through the vistas of the trees and on a level stretch of ground a great enclosure some hundreds of yards each way surrounded by a high stone wall, through whose pointed gateway there are glimpses of a castellated mansion. As we draw nearer a moat full of water discloses itself around the outer wall, and rumbling over a drawbridge which has long since forgotten its function, we enter the enclosure.

As the car draws towards the house, which stands in the centre of the place, a saturnine face, with a long, hooked nose, gazes at us through the dusty diamond-shaped panes of a window.

Here is a mansion of the olden times, and one so secluded that few from the outer world ever find it.

The house, built at several different periods, stands in the centre of the enclosure. I should judge that the main portion was of the date of Elizabeth but the left still holds a large round tower of a much older period and the main doorway of heavy old oak, very thick, and studded with nails folded back in several panels. A very curious bit of work.

It would seem to-day that the gentleman behind the window either doubts our being otherwise than spirituelle, or doubts our characters, and so declines to admit us, but he does come finally, and we enter an old-time place which knows nothing of the changes of these latter days and cares less for them.

In a large square hall we are greeted by our host, a typical Irish gentleman. He presents us to the ladies of the family, and we are welcomed as one is always welcomed in Ireland.

The owner, Major Rolleston, will not believe that I am an American as he cannot "hear the voice." I know just what he means and finally convince him that America like England has many accents.

They are charmed when they find that I really desire to see the old house, and we are soon at work, at least the Major and I are,—leaving the rest to discuss "tea." The Major acts as my guide over the place and out into a lovely flower-garden; he is greatly interested also in the cultivation of vegetables, and remarks with regret "you don't care for farming." Confessing my shortcomings in that respect his interest in me dies out, and he shortly conducts me back towards the old house, over another drawbridge, which, like its fellow in front, has long since forgotten its ancient usage. One might spend hours over such a place and not exhaust its interest. I understand that it is the only perfectly moated mansion remaining in Ireland. There are fish in the moat, and on one side a man can swim in six feet of water for some hundreds of feet. The portions of the building which we inspected consisted of a large square hall, dining-and drawing-rooms which stretch across its front, and a large library in the rear.

The hallway, like most in the land, is decorated with the antlers of many deer, and in the drawing-room quaint prints and engravings and portraits of long dead dames and squires adorn the wall, while through the diamond-shaped panes of the casement the leaf-flecked sunshine starts many a face into life as it flits across them. One feels that one should be dressed in the costume of the Golden days.

Ffranckfort is not a splendid place, but it is homelike and beautiful. Is it peace or stagnation which broods over a spot like this? Do these people live or merely vegetate? To a man who has passed his years where the pulses of life beat the strongest it seems at first like stagnation, as though these woods must suffocate as they crowd so closely around the outer enclosure, ever advancing towards the house,—indeed one great tree in its haste or intentness to get here has fallen, and now projects over moat and wall and far into the enclosure, where its branches peer about them. Yet when one has been here a space there is a "peace, be still" over it all, a sense of brooding, that is very calming to one's spirit.

Everything belongs to the long ago except our auto, which I order out of sight, round the corner, with a command to stay there until it is wanted and not intrude this twentieth century upon the sixteenth. But we cannot remain for ever, and the car, shortly summoned, glides forth and rolls us off and away, through the great gateway and over the bridge of the moat and so off into the aisles of the forest whose trees closing in around it hide the old hall from view as though by the dropping of a curtain, and again I ask, is it peace and contentment, or stagnation, to abide in Ffranckfort Castle?

I think it was Bayard Taylor who, in his early life, desired the seclusion of an island in some far off southern sea, there to dwell in close communion with nature, there to look from nature up to nature's God,—but as his years advanced and his sands of life ran towards a finish, that desire changed to one which would place him where the pulses of life beat the strongest, and his last words were, "Oh, for more of this stuff called Life!"

The shadows of night and the falling rain make it dark as we reach once more our quarters in Birr where a bright fire in our sitting-room is, to say the least, attractive, and where the discussion pro and con as to the merits of "Mr. Dooley's Hotel" are revived. "Beastly" comes from behind Boyse's book where he sits reading deep down in an arm-chair; but here is a cosey little room, easy chairs and a bright fire, a dinner-table attractively spread and an attractive dark-eyed lassie waiting to serve us. May I never encounter worse than that on my pilgrimage through life.

To-morrow we go to Clonmacnoise and to-night, as I sit reading about it, my thoughts become a strange jumble of crosses and round towers, haunted castles, and ancient Manor-houses towards which I am carried in a wild rush through the aisles of the forest surrounded and pursued by dogs, geese, fairies, and ghosts until the top of the hill of the fairies is reached and I am being tried for high treason because of my doubts to-day of the powers of each and all of them. The headless monk is my judge while the sheep with the long claw prosecutes the suit against me. My fingers are dripping blood, it seems, and I am about to be delivered to the dogs of Wingfield when I distinctly hear it stated that I am snoring and had better go to bed. Perhaps such is the case; so good night.

As Clonmacnoise stands on the banks of the Shannon and is but some thirty miles north of Birr, and the day yet young, we are off for a run thither. The morning is moist and the roads slippery, but we make good progress, most of the way through narrow lanes, and sometimes through pastures, to the astonishment of the cattle settled for their noonday's sleep.

Clonmacnoise was once the Oxford of Ireland, where the sons of the nobles were sent for education, its name "Cluan-mac-noise" meaning "the secluded recess of the sons of nobles."[6]

It was in addition, one of the favourite burial places of the Irish kings. Even to-day, to be interred here is considered a blessing, as those so honoured pass straight to heaven.

The Abbey dates from the days of St. Kieran, 548 A.D.,—he died of the plague and was buried here,—and at one time was one of the richest, compressing within its bounds almost the half of Ireland. It flourished all through the wars with the Danes, and seems to have been finally plundered by the English, who carried off the wonderful bells and every other movable object. From that time onward the roofless churches and buildings fell more and more a prey to advancing time, until the whole became as we see it to-day, a small ruined church, a fragment of a castle, a round tower, and a stately cross, crowded upon by the graves of those who have eagerly sought this direct route to the realms of the blessed, but, for us, this world is as yet too full of interest, and we do not envy these dead even though they have here found the portals of heaven.

At Clonmacnoise is one of the many holy wells dating from pagan days, and which the traveller finds all over Ireland. These wells would appear to have formed a prominent feature in the paganism of the ancient nations. There are traces of them all over Africa, Asia and Europe.

It's a slippery, sliding run back to Birr, which the motor several times attempts to take backwards, but it ends safely and we reach "Mr. Dooley's Hotel" for luncheon.

It is a misty morning as we depart from Birr, but mist at this season in Ireland falls like a benediction upon man and upon all the world of green around him—and where else in this world will you find such green as in Ireland?

To-day the woods and meadows stretch away before us and over all bends a grey sky with patches of vivid blue and white cutting through it every here and there.

We had arranged to visit with our hosts of yesterday another of the "most ancient" and still inhabited castles of this section, but fearing a change to rain in the weather we give that up and roll off to the south-west, until finally we reach a fair green valley through whose grasses and beneath whose bending trees lazily rolls the river Suir, a river just wide enough to suit one's fancy, full of fish and water lilies, and by whose banks, amidst a thick grove of stately trees, the ancient Abbey of the Holy Cross rears its grey walls and delicate traceries.

Holy Cross is one of the finest ruins in all Ireland, and was evidently an abbey of great wealth and importance. Truly those monks of old knew where to build and when they brought the relic of the Cross bestowed by Pope Pascal II. in 1110 to this spot and erected its shrine, they made no mistake. It is not difficult to restore in the mind's eye the ancient structure to what it once was, or to repeople it with the forms and faces of ancient days. Yonder door in the outer wall must often have given egress to the fat white-robed abbot and his jolly crowd of monks, come out to inspect the baskets of fish and other good things brought by the people who crowded around them. There were also hampers of fruit and vegetables, and other things which looked strangely like casks of wine. Back of all rose the stately abbey, while the river flowed onward waving its lilies and grasses, and the soft air was full of the sound of sacred bells and murmuring waters.

To-day we face a stately ruin and there is no sound of bells or sight of abbot, only the river still murmurs amongst its lilies, but Holy Cross is as beautiful in her ruin as she could ever have been in the days of her splendour.

A comely dame admits us through the abbot's portal, and for hours we wander as the fancy dictates, pausing now in the choir with its ancient tombs, climbing high on the great tower with its prospect of God's eternal resurrection all around, or resting where the high altar is draped in trailing ivy and splendid with golden lichen.

The mists have disappeared, the sunlight is warm and strong and one can almost see the fish in the river, while the air is laden with the fragrance of lilies, and there is a hush over all as though this ancient dame were sitting for her portrait.

How completely the rush and trouble of the world drops away in a spot like this! How the soul is lulled into slumber, and the "Peace, be still" of God comes down upon one!