The Charm Of Ireland Part 23

You will understand, therefore, why I was so eager to see it, and I went into the bar to consult with the barmaid as to the best manner of getting to it. I had been told that it was possible to reach it from the left bank of the river without the aid of a boat, but the maid a.s.sured me this could be done only when the river was low, and was out of the question in the present stage of the water. So she went to the door and called to a pa.s.sing boatman, and explained my wishes, and he at once volunteered to ferry me over to the island. His house, he said, was just opposite the island, and his boat was tied up at the landing there; so we walked down to it, along the bank of the ca.n.a.l which parallels the river.

A little way down the ca.n.a.l was a mill, and a boat was tied up in front of it unloading some grain, and when I looked into the boat, I saw that the grain was sh.e.l.led Indian corn! It was not from America, however, but from Russia, and my companion told me that quite a demand for cornmeal was growing up in the neighbourhood, and that it was used mixed with flour. And then he listened, his eyes round with wonder, while I told him how corn grows. He had never seen it on the ear, and did not know the meaning of the word "cob," except as applied to a horse.

"And of course you have seen bananas growing!" he said, when I had finished, and I think he scarcely believed me when I tried to explain that a country warm enough for corn might still be too cold for bananas.

We finally reached his house--a little hovel built on a bluff overhanging the river--and went down some rude stone steps to the water's edge; and he unchained his boat, and whistled to his dog, and pushed off. It was quite an exciting paddle, for the current was very swift; but we got across to the island at last, after some hair-raising sc.r.a.pings against rocks and over submerged reefs. We found the island a tangle of weeds and briars, but we broke our way through, and after some searching, found the tiny church, almost hidden by the bushes about it.

They were so thick that I found it quite impossible to get a picture of the whole church, but by breaking down some of them, I finally managed to get a picture of the narrow inclined doorway, with my guide's dog posing on the threshold.

The oratory is built solidly of stone, with walls three feet thick, and a steep stone roof. Its inside measurements are ten feet by six! There is a single window, with a round head cut out of a block of stone, and in the wall on either side just below it is a shallow recess. The ceiling has fallen in, but one can still see the holes in the walls where the supporting beams rested. Above it, under the steep roof, was a croft, where perhaps the saint slept.

Consider, for a moment, what was going on in the world when this little church was built. It takes us back to the age of legend--the age of King Arthur and his knights--to that dim period when the Saxons were conquering England, and the Frankish kingdom was falling to pieces, and Mohammed was preaching his gospel in Arabia. A century and a half would elapse before Charlemagne was born, and two centuries before the first Norse boat, driving westward before the tempest, touched the New England coast!

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENTRANCE TO ST. MOLUA'S ORATORY]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A FISHERMAN'S HOME]

There is, of course, a holy well on the island--the one at which St.

Molua drank; and we found it after a long search, but the river was so high that it was under two or three feet of water. There were some rags and other tokens hanging on the neighbouring bushes, but not many, and I judge that few people ever come to this historic spot.

At last I was ready to go, and we climbed into the boat and started for the mainland; and once I thought we were surely going to capsize, for the boat got out of control and banged into a rock; but we finally stemmed the current, and the boatman dropped his paddle and s.n.a.t.c.hed up a pole, and pushed along so close to the sh.o.r.e that the overhanging branches slapped us in the face, and the dog, thinking we were going to land, made a wild leap for the bank, fell short, and nearly drowned.

When we were safe again at the landing-place, and the boat tied up, I asked my companion how much I owed him for his trouble.

"Not a penny, sir," he said, warmly. "It's glad I am to oblige a pleasant gentleman like yourself."

"Oh, but look here," I protested, "that won't do," and I fished through my pockets and was appalled to find that I had only nine-pence in change. "Wait till we get back to the hotel," I said, "and I'll get some money."

"What is that you have in your hand, sir?"

"Oh, that's only nine-pence."

"That would be far too much, sir," he said; and when I hesitatingly gave it to him, he as hesitatingly took it, and I really believe he was in earnest in thinking it too much.

On our way back to the town, he expounded to me his theory of life, which was to give faithful service to one's employer, and help one's fellow-men when possible, and never bother unduly about the future, which was never as black as it looked. And I agreed with him that trouble always came b.u.t.t-end first, and that, after it had pa.s.sed, it frequently dwindled to a pinpoint--the which has been said in verse somewhere, by Sam Walter Foss I think, but I can't put my hand on it.

We got back to Castleconnell just as the fishermen were coming in, and it was far from empty-handed they were this time. The array of salmon stretched out on the floor of the bar, when they had all arrived, was a very n.o.ble one. And everybody stood around and looked at them proudly, and told of the enormous flies that had been used, and how one monster had whipped the boat around and towed it right down through the rapids, and lucky it was that the water was high or it would infallibly have been ripped to pieces, but the boatmen kept their heads and managed to get it through, and when the salmon came out in the quiet river below and found itself still fast, it gave up and let itself be gaffed without any further fuss.

And again after dinner, we saw the familiar sight of the catch being wrapped in straw to be sent by parcel post back to England, as proof of the anglers' prowess; and I can guess how those battles on Shannon water were fought over again when the angler got back to the bosom of his family. As for me, I have only to close my eyes to see again that n.o.ble stream sweeping along between its green, flower-sprinkled banks, foaming over the weirs, brawling past the rapids, hurrying between the quays of Limerick, and widening into the great estuary where it meets the sea.

Into the West, where, o'er the wide Atlantic, The lights of sunset gleam, From its high sources in the heart of Erin Flows the great stream.

Yet back in stormy cloud or viewless vapour The wandering waters come, And faithfully across the trackless heaven Find their old home.

CHAPTER XVII

LISSOY AND CLONMACNOISE

SINCE we could not get to Athlone by water, we must needs get there by rail; so, most regretfully, next morning, we bade good-bye to Castleconnell and took train for Limerick. Half an hour later, we pulled out of the Limerick terminus, circled about the town, crossed the Shannon by a long, low bridge, and were in County Clare.

Ruins are more numerous here than almost anywhere else in Ireland, for this western slope of the Shannon valley, so fertile and coveted, was famous fighting-ground. There are one or two in sight all the time, across the beautiful rolling meadows. Near Cratloe there are three, their great square keeps looming above the trees, and looking out across the wide Shannon estuary. A little farther on is the famous seat of the Earls of Th.o.m.ond, Bunratty Castle, a fine old fortress, with all the approved mediaeval tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of moat, guard-room, banqueting-hall, dungeons and torture-chamber, and I am sorry we did not get to visit it.

Indeed, there are many places in the neighbourhood worth a visit--but if one is going to visit every Irish ruin, he will need ten years for the task. Only it does cause a pang of the heart to pa.s.s any of them by.

We must have pa.s.sed at least fifty by, that day; but I found that the train stopped for a while at Ennis, the chief town of Clare, and I hurried out to see what I could of it. It is certainly a picturesque place, with narrow winding streets, and queer little courts, and houses painted pink or washed with yellow ochre. I glanced in at the new Catholic cathedral, whose most impressive feature is a rather good picture of the ascension over the high altar; and then spent a few minutes among the ruins of the Franciscan friary, a queer jumble of buildings which I did not have time to untangle.

As usual, the two biggest buildings in the town are the jail and the lunatic asylum, and I pa.s.sed them both on my way back to the station.

Some of the lunatics were languidly hoeing a big potato patch that day, with five or six guards looking on. I have never looked up the statistics of lunacy in Ireland, but if all the asylums are full, the rate must be very high.

About half a mile beyond Ennis, the train pa.s.ses a most imposing ruin, very close to the railway. It is the ruin of Clare Abbey, and is dominated by a great square tower, which must be visible for many miles around. There is still another ruin, that of Killone Abbey, only a few miles away, and for a connoisseur in ruins, Ennis would be an excellent place to spend a few days.

From Ennis, we turned almost due northward toward Athenry, and the landscape became the rockiest I have ever seen. Every little field was surrounded by a high stone wall, and as these walls did not begin to exhaust the supply, there were great heaps of rocks in every available corner--every one of them dug from the shallow soil with almost incredible labour. The fact that any one would try to reclaim such land speaks volumes for the hard necessities of the people who settled here.

I don't suppose they enjoyed the labour, but they had no choice--at least, their only choice was to wrest a living from these rocky fields or starve. No doubt many of them did starve, but the rest kept labouring on, with insect-like industry, reclaiming this corner and that, adding to the soil of their fields inch by inch.

There is an old saying that in this district, and in others like it in Connaught, the first three crops are stones, and I can well believe it.

The green appearance of these hillsides is a delusion and a snare, for it is nothing but a skin of turf over the rocks, and these rocks must be dug away to the depth of two feet, sometimes, before the soil is reached. In any other part of the world, a man who would attempt to convert such a hillside into an arable field would be thought insane; here, in the west of Ireland, it is the usual thing. Most tragic of all, after it was fit for tillage, it did not belong to the man whose labour had made it so, but to his English landlord, who promptly proceeded to raise the rent!

We ran out of this rocky land, at last, and crossed a vast bog, scarred with long, black, water-filled ditches, from which the turf had been taken. There were a few people here and there cutting it, but a woman who had got into the compartment with us said that the continued wet weather had made the work very difficult and dangerous. All the people hereabouts, she added, lived by the turf cutting, at which they could earn, perhaps, ten-pence a day; but in bad seasons they were soon close to starvation. I remarked that, with such wages, they must be close to it all the time, and she smiled sadly and said that that was true.

Only, of course, in the bogs the children can work, as well as the men and women, and that helps. Indeed, we saw them many times--little boys and girls who should have been at school or running free, gaining health and strength for the hard years to come, tugging at the heavy, water-soaked blocks of peat, and laying them out in the sun to dry. It takes a month of sun to dry the peat; in wet weather it won't dry at all, and so isn't salable. Truly, the lives of the poor Irish hang on slender threads!

There are ruins of castles and monasteries and raths and cashels all through this region, and a lot of them cl.u.s.ter about the dirty little town of Athenry, which can boast a castle, two monasteries, city walls and an old gate. Such richness was not to be pa.s.sed by, and we left the train, checked our luggage at the parcel office, fought off a jarvey who was determined to drive us to the ruins which we could see quite plainly just across the track, crossed the road by the overhead bridge, and came out in the streets of the village.

Athenry is typically Irish, with streets running every way, houses built any way, and their inhabitants leaning over the half-doors, or braced against the walls at the street corners, or going slowly about such business as they have. Life has stood still here for at least a century; and yet Athenry was once a royal town--"The Ford of the Kings" its name signifies--and a royal court was held here in the great castle, and a beautiful monastery was built near by at the express wish of St.

Dominick himself, and it became a famous place of learning, to which scholars flocked from all over Europe. Alas and alack!

Vanished, those high conceits! Desolate and forlorn, We hunger against hope for that lost heritage.

For the red tide of war swept over Athenry more than once, and left it but smoking ruins. Eleven thousand Connaughtmen lay piled about the walls one summer day in 1316, all that was left of the army that tried to make Edward Bruce king of Ireland; two centuries later, when the Earls of Clanricarde swept Connaught with fire and sword, Athenry fell before them, and was left in ashes; and when it struggled to its feet again, it was only to fall before the destroying hand of Red Hugh O'Donnell, who left scarcely one stone upon another, and from that blow it never rallied.

One of the old gates still survives, well preserved in spite of war and weather, and near it is a quaint old market cross, with the Virgin and Child on one side and Christ on the other. All that is left of the thirteenth century castle is the gabled keep, looming high on a rock just back of the town, and some fragments of the battlemented curtains.

All the floors have fallen in, and its four ma.s.sive walls are open to the heavens. Red Hugh, when he destroyed it, did his work well!

The ruins of the abbey nestle in the shadow of the rock on which the castle stands, and we made our way down to them, along disordered streets swarming with geese, ducks, dogs, chickens and children, only to find the way closed by an iron gate, securely padlocked. But a pa.s.ser-by told us that the village blacksmith had the key, and indicated vaguely the way to his shop, which we found after some circuitous wanderings.

The smith was a gnarled little man, quite the reverse of Longfellow's, and as soon as we had made our errand known, he s.n.a.t.c.hed down the keys and hastened to lead the way to the ruins, leaving his work without pausing to remove his ap.r.o.n, and without a backward glance at his helper, who stood open-mouthed by the forge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHOIR OF THE ABBEY AT ATHENRY]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A COTTAGE AT ATHENRY]

There were three gates to unlock before we reached the ruins, and then the blacksmith hurried back to his work, leaving his daughter to keep an eye on us. The church is all that is left of the monastery, for the domestic buildings, and even the cloisters have been swept entirely away by the rude hand of time, and the far ruder ones of the villagers who needed stone for their houses. The church itself has suffered more than most, for not only is the roof gone, but the tower and one transept and most of the window-tracery, and the whole interior has been swept by a savage storm, the tombs hacked and hewed, and the carved decorations knocked to fragments. Doubtless if we had questioned the girl who stood staring at us, she would have said that "Crummell did it," and in this case, history would bear her out, for the Puritan soldiery _did_ do a lot of damage here. They and the sans-culottes suffered from the same mania--a sort of vertigo of destructiveness before memorials of kings or Catholics!

But they couldn't destroy everything, and what is left in this old church is well worth seeing, for there are some graceful pointed windows, and six narrow lancets in a lovely row along the north wall of the choir, and a fine arcade in the north transept, and many details of decoration beautiful in spite of mutilation. The place is crowded with tombs, for this was the burial place of the Dalys and the Lynchs and the De Burgos, and is still in use as such. The tomb of the "n.o.ble family of De Burgh" is in one corner, and there are many mural tablets, with inscriptions in French and Latin and Gaelic, as well as English. In fact one of them announces in French and Latin and English, presumably so that every one except the Irish might read, that "here is the antient Sepulchre of the Sept of the Walls of Droghty late demolished by the Cromellians."

We went back through the town, at last, and while I was manoeuvring for the picture opposite page 270, Betty got into talk with a girl who was leaning over a half-door, and found, marvellous to relate, that she had once lived in Brookline, Ma.s.s. We asked her why she had come back to Ireland, and after a moment's thought she said it was because "America wasn't fair." We thought of aristocratic Brookline, the abode of millionaires, and then we looked about us--at the ragged donkey standing across the way, at the pig wandering down the middle of the dirty street, at the low little houses and the shabby people--and perhaps we smiled, but be sure it was in sympathy, not in derision.