Wanderings in Ireland

CHAPTER X

Route to Killarney—Country Estates—Singular Customs—Picturesque Squalor—Peace of the Lakes—Innisfallen—The Legend of "Abbot Augustine"—His Grave—"Dinnis" the "Buttons" and his Family Affairs—Motors in the Gap of Dunloe.

The route to Killarney lies through Mallow, where it is amusing, at the little hotel, to watch the airs and graces assumed by some dozen Irish-Americans who have returned to their native land for a visit after having made a dollar or so in America. My Jap boy last night ventured the remark that they "treat their own people very nastily," which is quite true. One is constantly impressed with the changed circumstances of those returning to the old world. On the inward-bound voyage last month I stood near two of the ancient faith who were watching the steerage below us. "Vell," said one, "that's the vay I vent over." "Me, too," replied his companion, and then complacently caressing heavy gold watch chains stretched across capacious stomachs, they strutted back to the smoking-room and proceeded to abuse the steward for not anticipating their wants. Such is life and progress, I suppose.

But our car has left Mallow far behind and is gliding onward by the side of the Blackwater, whose course we follow for many miles.

This is a beautiful section of the land. There are many fine estates on the hillsides and many ruined and ivy-clad towers by the waters. We have spent pleasant hours at several of the former and rambled over many of the latter. In one of the houses where we were for the "week end," I was amused by rather a singular custom. After dinner, the men having settled to bridge in the smoking-room I found myself, as I do not play cards, in the hall with the ladies, of whom there were several of the household and one visitor. We were enjoying some music and dancing when at nine o'clock in came our host and handing a lighted candle to each dame literally shooed them all off to bed, much to the indignation of the visiting lady and my own astonishment. Paying no attention to me, he returned to his game, and I sat on in the dark hall so convulsed with laughter that I was glad that the one candle left shrouded my mirth by casting many shadows. There were but two things for me to do, go and watch the game, or go to bed, and I did the latter though it was but nine o'clock. It is the custom at all these country homes for the ladies to retire long before the men, but I never before or since have seen them so peremptorily driven off.

I think on the route to the Lakes that the villages and straggling huts must be kept in the state of squalor in which we found them to the more thoroughly impress the newly arrived tourists; certainly as we near Killarney they are worse than any we have seen before,—rows on rows of squalid, dirty houses through whose open doors pigs or geese wandered, and beyond which gleamed a bit of a fire; white-capped or tozzle-headed women leaned chattering over the low half doorway used to keep both children, pigs, and geese from too freely passing off and away between the high mud-banks with their towering hedges of hawthorn. Droves of geese slip from beneath our flying wheels and scoff at us as we pass; chickens fly, screeching, to the safety of neighbouring dung-heaps, and some ducks get a gait on them that is most astonishing. It would be impossible for them to maintain their balance unless they kept up that furious pace.

As night closes in the clouds lower and finally rain comes down heavily but fortunately not until we have reached our journey's end, and the lights from the quaint Hotel Victoria stream out a welcome. They really act glad to see us and from the proprietor down to "Dinnis" the buttons each and all appear personally interested in our arrival. How different from the magnificent insolence of an American hotel clerk. But we are too tired for further comparisons and are soon off to bed.

To pass from the pomp and splendour of the army and the kaleidoscopic, unrestful, rushing life of the world to the peaceful shores of Killarney is a grateful change. It is so beautiful here to-day and the world seems so far away that one has no desire to do aught save sit under the waving boughs of the trees and watch the glittering waters of the lake. Off across its mirror-like surface the mountains rise abruptly and over them masses of white clouds hang broodingly, peacefully. Lazily I wander over the grass, and entering one of the many boats drifting in the water allow the boy to row me away upon the glassy surface.

Boyse is still in bed and so I have the boat to myself and also all the lake, for there is no sound or sign of life anywhere as we drift outward. The boy moves the oars lazily, scarcely touching the water with their tips, and we seem to drift halfway between the white clouds overhead and those far beneath us. Lily pads bearing their white and gold chalices wave gently to and fro and a stately white swan with her brood of little ones keeps us company for a space.

I have not told the boy where to go and he has not demanded to know, indeed he scarce seems conscious of my presence, but keeps his dreamy eyes fixed upon his beloved mountains brooding yonder under fleecy clouds. Ahead of us a fairy island floats waving green boughs in greeting and as our boat grounds on its gravelly beach, the boy rolls over and goes to sleep.

Photo by W. Leonard

Irish Cottage, County Kerry

This is evidently the haven where we would be, this holy Isle of Innisfallen, but it is some time before I am willing to break the brooding silence by any movement. The long drooping boughs of the trees trail gently to and fro across the boat and parting now and then give glimpses of the chapel of St. Finian the leper, but it is so in ruins, and it and its saint belongs so to the very long ago, that to-day it is like a thought in a dream.

As I wander off through the underwood shaded by giant ash the spirits of the dead monks seem all around me. The path leads to the grave of the abbot, so long dead that a huge tree growing from his ashes has encircled his tombstone with its very roots. He lived—but let this poem tell his story.

"Augustine, Abbot of Innisfallen, stood
In the abbey gardens at eventide,
And prayed in the hush and solitude
That his spirit might be more sanctified.
He blessed the hills, and fields, and river,
He blessed the shamrock sod;
While he asked the great and glorious giver
For a closer walk with God.
In that twilight hour came tumbling down
The song of a bird, so sweet and clear
That away from the abbey of Innisfallen and town,
The abbot followed, that he might hear;
Followed until, in a dim old wood,
Where the sweetness of song filled all the place
It paused and made glad the solitude,
With its joyous notes of strength and grace,

And the heart of the holy abbot plead
That the world might hear it and understand,
And he turned to the cloister near at hand.
Strange were the voices of prayer and praise,
And the faces were all unknown;
Gone were the monks of the older days,
Augustine, the abbot, stood alone.
'Where is Sacristan Michael, my son?'
In a faltering voice, the abbot asked;
'Is Malachi's pater noster done,
Has his strength been overtasked?'
The monks drew near to the aged man,
And told their beads with trembling hands,
As they heard that the stranger worn and wan
Was Augustine head of their house and lands.
'Two hundred years have gone,' they cried,
'Since rent was his temple's veil
Two hundred years since the good man died
And the Saxon rules over Innisfail;
No harp now of his countrie's weal
Sings loud in the house of O'Conner,
Gone is Tara's hall to the great O'Neill;
There is nothing left but honour.'
'Absolve me,' Augustine softly said,
'For mine hour is close at hand,
To rejoin the brethren who have fled
To the refuge found in a better land.
I soon shall hear the singing
That is clearer and sweeter still
Than the echo of heaven ringing
In the woods beyond the hill.
I shall soon be where a thousand years
Are as a day to the pure and true
To whom life was long with its cares and pains

Though its numbered years were few.'
They tell that legend far and wide
From Clonmines to Loch Neagh,
From Holy Cross to Dundalk Tide
From Antrim to Galway."

It is said that Innisfallen may not be put to profane uses, that early in the last century its owner commanded that it be cultivated, but when the work was begun the air at once became filled with millions of white birds, whose beating wings drove the men forth and away, leaving the isle sacred and unprofaned, and the abbot and his brethren to their dreamless slumbers, and so the years glide by.

As I pause to-day by the abbot's grave, its great tree rises above with arms extended, as though in final benediction, the grasses are spangled with millions of daisies, and the warm air is again, as in his day, full of the song of birds, and unless I desire a sleep of centuries it may be as well to return to the world of to-day.

The boy in the boat awakes with a yawn, and smilingly moves the boat off and away farther and farther until the Holy Isle seems to detach itself from the shimmering waters and to float cloudlike slowly heavenward.

How little the casual tourist ever sees of any land, especially of Ireland,—a day or two at Killarney, an hour at Blarney, some time waiting to hear Shandon bells, then a rush to Dublin and the Causeway, and they leave the island with a shrug of the shoulders and a belief that there is little to see. But wander into the byways, linger in the lost corners and talk to these people, and every moment will be of some sort of interest,—the tears and sadness will pull your very heartstrings one moment and laughter and fun will bubble all around you in a mad frolic an hour later. You may hear the wild songs of the mountains, or the wilder wailing for the dead, and the clouds will drift far overhead, as though in mourning for their sorrows, then the sunlight will follow after, sparkling, as though in laughter. Some of the inns will be neat and comfortable, whilst others will turn out like that horror of a hotel in Galway.

We are welcomed on our return to that at Killarney by "Dinnis." Now "Dinnis" is the "buttons" of the house and stands up to the magnificent altitude of four feet. He looks about fifteen and when I ask him if he goes to school I am about bowled over by his reply,—"I'm a married man, sor." Great heavens! I am told later that the fair bride is near twice Dinnis's height and that his wooing was of such an ardent nature that it nearly created a scandal. Ah, well—we don't live but once and Dinnis believes that if his life is to be as short as his stature, at least it shall be a merry one. I am told also that there are great expectations in his family and as our car glides away I lean out and implore him—if it's a boy—to name it "Mike." Dinnis's indignation at my intrusion upon his private life is vast but somewhat drowned out by a half-crown and the roars of laughter from the car boys around.

Chapel of St. Finian the Leper, Innisfallen

Photo by W. Leonard

Chapel of St. Finian the Leper, Innisfallen

The poor car boys in Ireland, especially at Killarney, are so many that there is not work for all and they have to take certain days for each, that all may have a share. The drivers of jaunting-cars turn gloomy eyes at our auto as we roll by, well knowing that the advent of such means loss to them.

I was strongly tempted to essay the Gap of Dunloe in the motor. The result would probably have been a fight, as one of Cook's waggons was attacked not long since while trying the same thing. According to my recollection of that road, its passage would not be at all difficult for a good car, but once the legend of its impassability save by ponies is done away with the occupation of many hereabouts would be over for all time.

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