Volume 19 / Part 4 — A Glimpse of the Green Isle. III—Concluded.

I return to some incidents in our journey to and arrival at Dublin. Goold's Cross is the nearest station to the Rock of Cashel, from which it is distant about five miles. We alight here. We go to visit one who is kin and more than kind. His lares are enshrined at Mora House. An Irish conveyance, called a covered car, takes us thither pretty comfortably. There are three kinds of cars for the transportation of travellers in Ireland, not including the “low-backed car” which is, or was, designed for the movement of farm produce, and, according to Sam Lover, of rustics on ante-nuptial expeditions intent. Apropos, I did not see a specimen of the “low-backed car” from Queenstown to Kingstown. That time-honored and poetical vehicle seems to have given place to a modern box-cart, in the East and South at least. The three varieties of car above mentioned belong to the genus known as jaunting-cars. First, there is the “outside car,” on which the passengers are seated facing outward and back to back. The space between the backs of the sitters is railed off into a place for baggage—or, Anglicé, luggage—called the “well.” It is one of the wells in which truth is not always to be found. At the front end of “the well” is a raised seat for the driver. The “outside car” furnishes seats for from two to three persons on each side. When the seats are not full, the driver usually sits on a side “to balance the cyar.” The “inside car” is the converse of the “outside.” In the former the sitters face each other; their legs are in a space between the wheels, instead of outside them, as on the latter. It is entered by a small door at the back. The driver occupies a raised seat in front. The “covered car” is an “inside” with a high, square covering of black oil-cloth. It is used in rainy weather. It has some disadvantages. You can see only through the curtain at the back. There are no openings at the sides, and the small glazed apertures in front are placed too high to admit even of an occasional glimpse of the face of Nature. You can only see the dame from behind. Both the “inside” and the “covered car” have a tendency to tilt backwards. You are eternally slipping down the seat toward the door. A sudden start may drop you out like a too well-warmed plate from the hand of a greedy guest. I came near dropping out once or twice in a ride of a few miles. In one of these conveyances it is wise to take a double hitch around infant America.

A hearty welcome meets us at Mora House. It is situated in the heart of a most lovely country. The house is embowered in trees [pg 664] and shrubbery. The walls, offices, and outhouses are covered with ivy. Along the front of the house is a conservatory. Around it are parterres with evergreens and early flowers, and borders of dark-green box. Broad pastures, spreading their green slopes into the distance, are relieved here and there by clumps of tall oaks. Cattle and sheep dot the landscape, giving it life without taking from its beautiful repose. In the background the Rock of Cashel, with its ruins and lofty round tower, rears its grim silhouette against the evening sky. The frame of the picture is completed by the mountains of misty blue in the far distance. Among them towers the peak from which, according to tradition, his sable majesty—in a very hungry moment doubtless—is said to have taken a “Devil's Bit.” Over all this is spread a sky half blue, half cloud, with the softest of clare-obscures. What a feeling of peace steals over my soul as I look upon this sweet landscape! What a lovely spot for that retirement, “friend to life's decline,”

“To husband out life's taper at the close,

And keep the lamp from wasting by repose”!

Alas! there is no such gentle decline for us, poor nomads of the New World! We must work with tongue, or pen, or sword, or pencil by the failing light of the lamp until the last of its flickering rays dies into darkness for ever.

After luncheon our gentle cousin takes us to look at his horses and his dogs. One is a Mount St. Bernard, a colossal brute and a prime favorite. Then we visit his kitchen garden, and his cows, and his bee-hives, and, in short, everything that is his. Next we examine the paintings and the photographs; among the former a life-size oil-painting, by O'Keefe, of an uncle, a university man, a brilliant scholar, who sat in more than one professor's chair.

Thus we occupied the time until dinner was announced. Then we sat down to one of those long-drawn-out, old-fashioned dinners which commence at six in the evening and end any time before midnight. Gentle cousin, having heard the Lady from Idaho express a desire to see an Irish turf-fire, had one made in the dining-room; and a bright, pleasant, cheerful, cleanly fire it is. We persuaded the ladies to honor in the breach, for this once, the absurd British custom of withdrawing from the table after the dessert. What a pleasant evening we spent!

Next morning we found rain still falling. It softened the atmosphere without obscuring it. The Rock of Cashel loomed up grimly but distinctly in the distance.

There is now little that is regal about “Cashel of the Kings.” It has its ruins, but nothing else. The approaches to the ruins show more of poverty and discomfort than I remember to have seen in any other town in Ireland. There is a majesty about the ruins. The rock on which they stand is about three hundred feet high. There is a lofty round tower in a good state of preservation. The frescos in one of the halls, said to have been the council-chamber, are in a state of wonderful freshness. The floors of some of the apartments in the second story seem as perfect as ever they could have been. The carved stone-work over the porch of one of the entrances—to Cormac's Chapel, I think—is the admiration of connoisseurs. Every foot of this ground awakens a historical [pg 665] remembrance. I see the rude rulers of ancient Ireland assembled in their regal state. The second Henry and Edward Bruce pass before my mind's eye. I see that fierce and unscrupulous nobleman, the eighth of the Geraldine earls of Kildare, and think of his astonishing ideas of right and wrong. When Mormon Harry took him to task for burning the Cathedral of Cashel, he pleaded as his excuse that when he fired the church he thought the bishop was in it! What a pleasant neighbor Lord Gerald must have been!

We have a delightful drive to the little old town of Thurles. The green of the fields and the hedges is enhanced by the contrast of thousands of soft, yellow primroses. How purely fresh those primroses look! Here bunches of violets peer forth bashfully, their modest little faces freshly washed by the gently-dropping rain!

Thurles is a station on the Great Southern and Western Railway. There we take rail for Dublin. It is an old town with a quaint old ivy-mantled tower which dates from the XIIIth century. The tower stands by a bridge, and watches over an infant stream that becomes a broad river before it reaches the sea. It is a relic of the time when Thurles was a walled town. Thurles is the seat of the Catholic Archbishop of Cashel. There are two convents, the Presentation and the Ursuline. The Sisters of the former institution devote themselves to the education of the poor. The Ursuline Sisters have an academy for young ladies of the wealthier and more aristocratic classes. The Presentation school gets a share of the Government educational fund, and is subject to the supervision of the Government inspectors. The mode of teaching in the Presentation school is very similar to that of the public schools in New York. The children sang in chorus remarkably well. There is also a collegiate institution for the education of candidates for the priesthood. We visited both convents, and were kindly and hospitably received.

Among the objects most worthy of a visit is the cathedral, which in taste and magnificence of decoration promises to surpass all modern ecclesiastical buildings in Ireland. It has rich marbles from Italy, fine specimens of native marble, lapis lazuli and verd-antique, in stones that are worth their weight in gold. Some of the work on the altars is exquisite. The cathedral will be a superb memorial of the piety and taste of the present archbishop, Dr. Leahy. We had the pleasure of visiting, and being visited by, that distinguished ecclesiastic and most refined and courteous gentleman. Very kindly and hospitably did he entreat us.

About four or five miles from Thurles are the ruins of Holy Cross Abbey. Our ride thither was through a delightful country in all the humid beauty of an Irish spring. The ruins are not extensive. They have been so often and so minutely described that a detailed description is not necessary here. Besides, I am not writing a guide-book. I must mention, however, a stone balustrade which is quite artistic in its effect. The principal window is a splendid piece of work. It is in excellent preservation. There are a number of tombs of considerable age in the abbey. Near the principal window is one to which a singular legend is attached. It was related to us by the guardian of the [pg 666] place, an old woman of eighty, but hale and hearty, chatty and cheerful—such a pleasant female Old Mortality as the immortal Sir Walter would have loved to study and depict. I have often wondered at the cheerfulness with which the old among the Irish poor bear the burden of lengthened existence. The tomb is of stone, and in its upper surface is a hollow. The old woman told us that it was worn by a rain-drop which for many years fell unceasingly from the roof until the constant dropping wore into the stone the hollow that we saw. The drop began to fall on the commission of some crime, or some offence against the church—she did not recollect which—by “one of the family”—“perhaps some trouble with the priest of the parish.” It continued to fall, drip, drip, drip, rain or shine, year in and year out, until the crime was atoned for, or the offence pardoned, or the family sold out and left the country. Then the drop ceased to fall, and has never fallen since.

“Do you think the story is really true?” asked the Lady from Idaho of the old custodian.

“Do I think its thrue, ma'am?” said the old woman, giving her territorial ladyship a diplomatic look. “Shure, it isn't for the likes o' me to be denyin' the likes of that. And shure, ma'am, can't you see the hole for yourself?”

“Of course. There is no better proof than that.”

“And don't you see, ma'am, that it's rainin' now at the very minnit that I'm talkin' to ye?”

“There certainly can be no doubt about that,” replied the Lady from Idaho, glancing upwards at the umbrella which Cousin George held over her head.

“And don't you see, ma'am, that niver a dhrop falls on the tomb where the hole is, now?” added the old woman triumphantly.

“I do indeed,” replied Mme. Idaho. “That last argument is conclusive. Even if it were not, I am of easy faith in such matters.”

“And wisely so,” chimed in Cousin George. “Doubting Thomas makes a miserable traveller. He loses the pleasures of travel in the search for proofs that he is not enjoying himself without proper warrant. If he finds evidence for us that our pleasures of association are not justified by fact, that we have no right to be pleased by legends he can disprove, we tell him he is a fool for his pains. We do not want his facts. We are determined to believe in our favorite legends, in spite of him and all the Gradgrinds in the world.”

The old woman looked at Cousin George with rather a puzzled air. She had listened most attentively, leaning her old head forward, and with withered forefinger pushing back her mob-cap from her time-dulled ear; but Cousin George's harangue was evidently Greek to her. She instinctively divined, nevertheless, that George was talking on her side of the question; for she said, nodding her head approvingly the while:

“Faith, and shure it's mighty right ye are, yer honor!”

A gratuity, calculated according to the American standard, resulted in a series of blessings and a succession of antique “dips,” known as “courtesies” by the Irish peasant women of a past generation.

We took the cars again at Thurles on our way Dublin-ward.

There is an air of comfort and solidity about the few farm-houses we notice on our route, but they were indeed few. The proportion [pg 667] of land under tillage was comparatively very small. The country seemed generally to be in pasturage. Large flocks of sheep and herds of cattle were to be seen. The small proprietors and farmers had disappeared. We saw a couple of women working in the fields. This annoyed the Lady from Idaho very much. She said that no matter how beautiful the landscape might be, that blot destroyed all her enjoyment of it. Our travelling companion, Viator, bade her season her admiration for a while until she reached the interior of Germany, where she would see many a team of wayward sisters harnessed to the plough and driven by a beery lord of the creation. Mme. Idaho said she did not want to go where such sights could be seen.

We pass Kildare, with its world-famed “Curragh,” an extensive flat, on which a few thousand British troops were encamped at the time. At every station we find a policeman or two casting argus eyes over things in general. Physically, the policemen—the “Royal Irish Constabulary”—are among the finest specimens of the genus homo I have seen. They are tall, generally over six feet, and magnificently moulded. Their uniform, though somewhat sombre, is in good taste: a dark, green tunic and trousers, with a small, visorless forage-cap ornamented in front with a harp in scarlet.

Clondalkin, which is within a few miles of Dublin, possesses a round tower in excellent preservation. It is about eighty feet high. The entrance is about twelve feet from the ground. It has four openings or windows some ten feet below the roof.

We are in Dublin, at King's Bridge terminus, so called from being near the bridge erected over the Liffey to commemorate the visit to Dublin of the fourth of the royal personages so unflatteringly designated by the author of Childe Harold. A charming Irish landscape greets the eye as you approach the city; on the left the prettiest portion of the Liffey and the Phœnix Park; on the right a gently-undulating expanse of green fields bordered by old trees and dotted with ancient churches and picturesque cottages, bounded in the distance by the soft outline of the Wicklow Hills.

One of our party expected to meet a brother whom he had not seen since they were both boys nearly a quarter of a century ago. Arrived at the terminus, and once more restored to liberty by the unlocking of the carriage-doors, he looked around anxiously for the individual he expected to find waiting for him. He could pick out no one in the crowd whom he could claim as a brother.

“I do not think there is any one here,” said Mr. Hibernicus with an air of disappointment, after vainly peering into the faces of a dozen gentlemen, who seemed rather surprised by his close scrutiny.

“What kind of a brother do you expect, Mr. Hibernicus?” asked the Lady from Idaho.

“I assure you, my dear madam,” replied Mr. Hibernicus, “I have not the remotest idea what Jack looks like now. He was quite a boy when we parted, and I have not seen even a photograph of him since. I hoped that instinct would reveal to me, as to honest Jack Falstaff, the ‘true prince.’ ”

We stood irresolute for a moment, when a gentleman with a long beard à l'Américaine approached [pg 668] our group. Raising his hat, and acknowledging the presence of ladies by a bow, he said to Mr. Hibernicus, who was still endeavoring to bring his instinct into play:

“May I ask, sir, if you are looking for anybody?”

“I am looking for my brother, sir,” replied Mr. Hibernicus. “Permit me to inquire if you expect any one?”

“I expect my brother,” returned the gentleman.

“Are you Jack?”

“I am Jack.”

“How are you, Jack?”

And the brothers, after a vigorous hand-shake and some inquiries after “So-and-so,” took things as coolly as if they had only been parted a quarter of an hour instead of a quarter of a century.

Decidedly, people born to the English tongue have a horror of anything approaching to demonstrative sensibility. They have nothing dramatic about them. What a scène two Frenchmen or two Italians would have made out of such a meeting after many roving years! During the days when a generous and romantic credulity gave me undeserved credit for burning the midnight oil over Homer and Horace, I had a French student-friend named l'Orient—an ami intime of six months' standing. L'Orient made a six weeks' trip to England, and I was at the station to receive the great traveller when he returned.

“Te revoilà toi! Comment vas-tu?” said I, putting forth my hand for a friendly shake. But l'Orient was not to be put off with anything so commonplace as the usual English pump-handle reception.

“Enfin, je te revois!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms around me, “ce cher ami! Ce brave Jeem! Ce vieux de la vieille!” And putting a hand behind each of my ears, thus rendering escape impossible, he kissed me vigorously on both cheeks. Then we walked toward our hotel, l'Orient holding my hand in his. We met Jules; and l'Orient left me, and threw himself on Jules: “Ce cher Jules! Ce brave Jules!” etc., etc., and performed a double osculation on Jules. Next we met Victor, and then Benoit and several others, each of whom was accosted by l'Orient and embraced in the same effusive manner. Our two brothers meet after a separation of half a century with a simple “How are you, Jack?” and a hand-shake. What demonstration would be lively enough for my old friend l'Orient under such circumstances? Yet l'Orient did not feel a tithe of what Jack and his brother felt. I often think it would be better for us if we were more demonstrative. We should perhaps be better satisfied with ourselves, and perhaps others would be better satisfied with us also.

I had directed my telegram from Queenstown to a wrong number, but the telegraph people took the trouble to find the person to whom it was addressed. I have had occasion frequently to use the postal telegraph. I have found its management admirable. The post-office department is also excellently well conducted. If there is any possibility of delivery, a letter is sure to be delivered. One of my friends writes a hand so hard to decipher that I can generally achieve most success in unravelling its mysteries by turning his missives upside down and studying his hieroglyphics in an inverted position. He wrote to me at Dublin, and addressed me at a street [pg 669] unknown to the Dublin directory. In New York this would have been the last of the letter. The Dublin post-officials referred the letter from one postal district to the other until the person to whose care it was addressed was found, and it was forwarded to Paris, where I happened to be at the time.

Dublin occupies both sides of the Liffey. The river runs through the city from east to west. The streets along its banks are subdivided into “quays.” The banks are faced with granite, of which the parapets are also constructed. The river is spanned by nine handsome bridges, seven of stone and two of iron. The river streets extend about three miles on either side. Each block, as we would say in New York, has a different name. Thus there is Usher's Quay, Merchants' Quay, Wellington Quay, etc., on the north side, extending from the Phœnix Park gate to the North Wall Lighthouse. On the south side are Arran Quay, King's Inn Quay, where the Four Courts are situated, Upper Ormond Quay and Lower, Eden Quay, Custom-House Quay, etc. The entire street reaches from King's Bridge to the end of the South Wall at Dublin Bar Lighthouse. The Liffey may be considered as the diameter of a circle in which Dublin is contained; the circular roads which run around it describe the circumference. West of Carlisle Bridge, which is the head of navigation, the Liffey is a dull and uninviting stream, especially at low water. It is not more than eighty yards wide. The mouths of the sewers which empty into it are some feet above low-water mark. Their contributions to its by no means pellucid flood are not agreeable to contemplate either from an æsthetic or from a sanitary point of view. I should suppose the quays to be unhealthy places for residence. One must have the suicidal mania very strong indeed who would throw himself into the Liffey between King's and Carlisle Bridges. Beyond King's Bridge you get into the country, where the stream is not defiled by the filth of the city.

Sackville Street is the principal street of Dublin. It is about twice as wide as Broadway, but is not longer than from Canal Street to Houston Street. Its shortness takes away from its impressiveness. At the foot of Sackville Street stands Nelson's Pillar, a Doric column about a hundred and twenty feet high, with a figure of the great admiral leaning against a capstan on the summit. A fine view can be had on a clear day (which is not always to be had) from the top of the monument, to which you may ascend by a spiral staircase in the interior on payment of a small fee. The steps at the base of the column are generally occupied by squatting idlers of all ages. On a fine day—i.e., when it does not rain—every inch of sitting space is occupied. Belated “squatters” may be seen waiting for hours until place is made by the retirement of some of the sitting members. Then a general rush is made for the vacant place. Here the politics of the nation and of the universe are discussed by the unwashed politicians of the Irish capital. I endeavored to ascertain how these squatters manage to live; but I was told that it is one of those mysteries which no one can penetrate.

The General Post-Office and the Rotunda are near the monument. The Post-Office is a fine structure [pg 670] of stone with a portico of Ionic pillars five feet in diameter. Its pediment is surmounted by three statues: Ireland at the apex, Fidelity on the left, and Mercury on the right. In certain post-offices that we wot of Mercury would indeed be the right statue in the right place, and might be considered to have a double significance—as a celestial messenger and a patron of thieving post-office clerks.

Certain tourists have claimed for Sackville Street the proud pre-eminence of being “the finest thoroughfare in Europe.” I do not think the claim well founded. I do not consider it equal to some of the new boulevards in Paris, or even to some of those in Brussels. It is certainly grand and imposing as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. Sackville Street, however, presents a lively scene on a fine afternoon. Beautiful women, well-dressed gentlemen, rich toilets, and magnificent equipages may then be seen; the toilets superior to anything to be seen out of Paris, the equipages not to be equalled out of London. Nothing that I have seen on the Continent of Europe can compare with the “turn-outs” and “cattle” driven in Dublin. The most beautiful equipage I have noticed, and at the same time the chastest in its elegant simplicity, was that of Earl Spencer, the present viceroy; four dark bays—blood-horses—with postillions and outriders in a dark livery almost black, with white buckskin breeches and top-boots. Not a brass button or strip of tawdry gold lace to be seen. Compared with this equipage, the state carriages at Buckingham Palace and those at Versailles looked like circus wagons.

Carlisle Bridge, the embouchure of Sackville Street, being considerably narrower than the street, is generally the scene of something like a “Broadway jam.” On a busy day it reminds one of the Fulton Street crossing—even to the policeman.

The élite of Dublin, however, will be found in Grafton Street about four p.m. This street, though narrow—narrower even than Broadway—is the brightest, cheeriest street in Dublin. It is laid with asphaltum, and is delightfully free from mud or noise. It is the fashionable shopping-street. Equipages in the very perfection of good taste may be seen in long lines at both sides of the street in front of the principal shops, while ranks of magnificent “Yellowplushes,” in rich liveries and powdered heads, wait, with the grand imperturbability of flunky dignity, to open the carriage-door for madame or “my lady.”

I have already said that the Irish in Ireland are becoming a serious people. I did not meet a single specimen of the Irish joker, indispensable to the tourist in Ireland a quarter of a century ago. If he ever existed as they represented him, the railways have killed him. Now there is no time for display of wit, so called. I think the extinction of the genus “joker” is something to be grateful for. I did not see any evidence of suffering among the laboring classes or any more raggedness than in England, France, or Germany. Artisans are becoming scarce, and can command good wages. It is hard to get agricultural laborers; they can almost set their own terms. Those who may be obtained cannot be kept very long; they work merely to save enough to join their relatives and friends in the Land of the Free.

[pg 671]

The traditional costume of the stage Irishman is as rarely seen in Ireland as the short-waisted, long-tailed coat, and striped trousers of the stage Yankee in the United States. I saw but one pair of “knee-breeches” between Cork and Kingstown.

I did not encounter a single shillelah.