Wanderings in Ireland

"'Creature,' she says, 'do you speak Hebrew?' 'I'd speak anything,' he answers, 'to speak with you.' 'Then,' she says again, 'have you seen my skin?' 'Yes, darling,' he says in reply, looking at her with every eye in his head. 'Where, where is it?' she cries, jumping up and clasping her two little hands together, and dropping on her knees before John.

"'Where is it?' he repeats, raising her gently up; 'why, on yourself, to be sure, as white and as clear as the foam on a wave in June.'

"'Oh, it's the other skin I want,' she cries, bursting into tears. 'Shall I skin myself and give it you, to please you, my lady?' he replies; 'sure I will, and welcome, if it will do you any good, sooner than have you bawling and roaring this way,' he says, 'like an angel,' he says.

"'What a funny creature you are!' she answers, laughing a lilt of a laugh up in his face; 'but you're not a seal,' she says, 'and so your skin would do me no good.'

"'Whew!' thought John O'Glin; 'whew! now all the blossom is out on the May-bush; now my eyes are opened'; for he knew the sense of what he had seen, and how the whole was a memory of the old world.

"'I'll tell you what it is,' said the poor fellow, for it never took him any time at all to fall in love; 'I'll tell you what it is, don't bother any more about your bit of a skin, but take me instead of it—that is,' he said, and he changed colour at the bare thought of it, 'that is, unless you're married in your own country.' And as all their discourse went on in Hebrew and Latin, which John said he had not a perfect knowledge of, he found it hard to make her understand at first, though she was quick enough too; and she said she was not married, but might have been, only she had no mind to the seal, who was her father's prime minister, but that she had always made up her mind to marry none but a prince. 'And are you a king's son?' she says. 'I am,' says John, as bould as murder, and putting a great stretch on himself. 'More than that, I'm a king's great-grandson—in these twisting times there's no knowing who may turn up a king; but I've the blood in my veins of twenty kings—and what's better than that, Irish kings.'

"'And have you a palace to take me to?' she says, 'and a golden girdle to give me?'

"Now this, John thought, was mighty mean of her; but he looked in her eyes and forgot it. 'Our love,' he says, 'pulse of my beating heart, will build its own palace; and this girdle,' and he falls on his knees by her side, and throws his arm round her waist, 'is better than a girdle of gold!' Well, to be sure, there was no boy in Mayo had better right to know how to make love than John O'Glin, for no one ever had more practice; and the upshot of it was that (never, you may be sure, letting on to her about the sealskin) he clapt her behind him on Molche, and carried her home; and that same night, after he had hid the skin in the thatch, he went to the priest—and he told him a good part of the truth; and when he showed his reverence how she had fine gold rings and chains, and as much cut coral as would make a reef, the priest did not look to hear any more, but tied them at once. Time passed on gaily with John O'Glin: he did not get a car for Molche, because no car could go over the Mayo mountains in those days; but he got two or three stout little nags, and his wife helped him wonderful at the fishing—there wasn't a fin could come within half a mile of her that she wouldn't catch—ay, and bring to shore too; only (and this was the only cross or trouble John ever had with her, and it brought him a shame-face many a time) she'd never wait to dress anything for herself, only eat it raw; and this certainly gave him a great deal of uneasiness. She'd eat six herrings, live enough to go down her throat of themselves, without hardly drawing her breath, and spoil the market of cod or salmon by biting off the tails. When John would speak to her about it, why she'd cry and want to go back to her father, and go poking about after the skin, which she'd never mention at any other time; so John thought it would be best to let her have her own way, for when she had, it's nursing the children, and singing, and fishing she'd be all day long; they had three little children, and John had full and plenty for them all, for she never objected to his selling her rings, or chain, or corals; and he took bit after bit of land, and prospered greatly, and was a sober, steady man, well-to-do; and if he could have broke her of that ugly trick she had of eating raw fish, he'd never say no to her yes; and she taught the young ones Hebrew, and never asked them to touch a morsel of fish until it was put over the turf; and there were no prettier children in all the barony than the 'seal-woman's'; with such lovely hair and round blinking eyes, that set the head swimming in no time; and they had sweet voices, and kind hearts that would share the last bit they had in the world with any one, gentle or simple, that knew what it was to be hungry; and, the Lord he knows, it isn't in Mayo their hearts would stiffen for want of practice.

"Still John was often uneasy about his wife. More than once, when she went with him to the shore, he'd see one or two seals walloping nearer than he liked; and once, when he took up his gun to fire at a great bottle-nosed one that was asleep on the sandbank, she made him swear never to do so: 'For who knows,' she says, 'but it's one of my relations you'd be murdering?' And sometimes she'd sit melancholy-like, watching the waves, and tears would roll down her little cheeks; but John would soon kiss them away.

"Poor fellow! much as he loved her, he knew she was a sly little devil; for when he'd be lamenting bitterly how cute the fish were grown, or anything that way, she'd come up and sit down by him, and lay her soft round cheek close to his, and take his hand between hers, and say, 'Ah, John darlin', if you'd only find my skin for me that I lost when I found you, see the beautiful fish I'd bring you from the bottom of the sea, and the fine things. Oh! John, it's you then could drive a carriage through Newport, if there were but roads to drive it on.'

"But he'd stand out that he knew nothing of the skin; and it's a wonder he was heart-proof against her soft, deludering, soothering ways; you'd have thought she'd been a right woman all her life, to hear her working away at the 'Ah, do,' and 'Ah, don't'; and then, if she didn't exactly get what she wanted, she'd pout a bit; and if that didn't do, she'd bring him the youngest baby; and if he was hardened entirely, she'd sit down in a corner and cry; that never failed, except when she'd talk of the skin—and out and out, she never got any good of him about it—at all! But there's no end of female wit; they'll sit putting that and that together, and looking as soft and as fair-faced all the while as if they had no more care than a blind piper's dog, that has nothing to do but to catch the halfpence. 'I may as well give up watching her' said John to himself; 'for even if she did find it, and that's not likely, she might leave me (though that's not easy), but she'd never leave the children'; and so he gave her a parting kiss, and set off to the fair of Castlebar. He was away four days, longer certainly than there was any call to have been, and his mind reproached him on his way home for leaving her so long; for he was very tender about her, seeing that though she was only a seal's daughter, that seal was a king, and he made up his mind he'd never quit her so long again. And when he came to the door, it did not fly open, as it used, and show him his pretty wife, his little children, and a sparkling turf fire—he had to knock at his own door.

"'Push it in, daddy,' cried out the eldest boy; "'mammy shut it after her, and we're weak with the hunger.' So John did as his child told him, and his heart fainted, and he staggered into the room, and then up the ladder to the thatch—It was gone!—and John sat down, and his three children climbed about him, and they all wept bitterly.

"'Oh, daddy, why weren't you back the second day, as you said you'd be?' said one. 'And mammy bade us kiss you and love you, and that she'd come back if she'd be let; but she found something in the thatch that took her away.'

"'She'll never come back, darlings, till we're all in our graves,' said poor John—'she'll never come back under ninety years; and where will we all be then? She was ten years my delight and ten years my joy, and ever since ye came into the world she was the best of mothers to ye all! but she's gone—she's gone for ever! Oh, how could you leave me, and I so fond of ye? Maybe I would have burnt the skin, only for the knowledge that if I did, I would shorten her days on earth, and her soul would have to begin over again as a babby seal, and I couldn't do what would be all as one as murder.'

"So poor John lamented, and betook himself and the three children to the shore, and would wail and cry, but he never saw her after; and the children, so pretty in their infancy, grew up little withered atomies, that you'd tell anywhere to be seal's children—little, cute, yellow, shrivelled, dawshy creatures—only very sharp indeed at the learning, and crabbed in the languages, beating priest, minister, and schoolmaster—particularly at the Hebrew. More than once, though John never saw her, he heard his wife singing the songs they often sung together, right under the water; and he'd sing in answer, and then there'd be a sighing and sobbing. Oh! it was very hard upon John, for he never married again, though he knew he'd never live till her time was up to come again upon the earth even for twelve hours; but he was a fine moral man all the latter part of his life—as that showed."

As I close my book and put out my candle for the night the moonlight streaming in at the window draws me to the casement. The bay is like a sheet of quivering silver with the mountains of Achill and the island of Clare towering darkly above it. On the highway winding off white in the clear light no sign of life is visible and but for the softly sobbing winds, the silence of the night is intense. The tide is flowing to the sea and the waters are deserted save for one slowly drifting boat. One is scarcely conscious at first of any sound other than that of the winds but, as the boat draws nearer on the air floats upward one of those sad crooning melodies of these people—at first a low monotone which rises and rises, wailing all around and far above until the very mountains seem to throw back the sorrow of it. Then it falters away into silence.

CHAPTER VI

Monastery of Burrishoole—Queen Grace O'Malley and Her Castle of Carrig-a-Hooly—Her Appearance at the Court of Elizabeth—Dismissal of Her Husband—Wild Scenery of the West Coast—The Ancient Tongue—Recess—Kylemore Castle—Crazy Biddy.

Leaving Mallaranny we retrace our route towards Newport and pass near Burrishoole, the ruined monastery of the Dominicans, and then the castle of Carrig-a-Hooly, from whence that Amazon Queen of this section and of the island of Clare, Grace O'Malley, dismissed her lord and husband of a year's standing.

Carrig-a-Hooly is to-day a square pile of very solid construction, standing upon a rock, and at one time protected by a massive surrounding wall. The few windows or loopholes are far apart and very narrow. From which one Queen Grace dismissed her approaching lord is not related but that the dismissal was short, sharp, and to the point, effective, there seems no doubt, as she continued to hold sway over all the County of Mayo and the adjoining islands, to say nothing of as much of the neighbouring counties as she could cowe into submission.

The monastery of Burrishoole is said to have been her burial-place, and there her skull was for a long time preserved as a precious relic, but it is also stated that, together with those of many others buried there, her bones were stolen and being carted to Scotland were ground up for manure, enriching the land as those of Cæsar were used to stop the chinks and keep the wind away.

It was well for the thieves here that they worked and escaped in the night, for such desecration would have resulted in their quick dispatch had the superstitious peasantry caught them.

Many of the latter believe that the skull of the Queen was miraculously restored to its niche in the abbey, but if so it has mouldered into dust long since.

The skulls still to be seen here are regarded with deep veneration and are often borrowed by the peasantry to boil milk in, which being served to the sick one is a sure antidote for all ills.

Queen Grace of Mayo strongly reminds one of another Queen in a far-off country,—Tamara, whose ruined "Castle of Roses" still keeps watch over the Caucasus.

This castle of Queen Grace, like so many old towers, is supposed to cover buried treasures, guarded at night by a mounted horseman.

There is, however, another scene in her life which, whilst not productive of such results as the one at Carrig-a-Hooly, must have been picturesque and startling in the extreme.

Imagine the court of the great Elizabeth, with the daughter of Henry VIII. on the throne in all the heyday of her fuss and feathers, robed gorgeously and wearing a great farthingale—beneath the hem of her short skirt one notes the jewelled buckles on her high-heeled shoes,—from her pallid face flash a pair of reddish eyes and above her pallid brow her red hair is piled high and adorned with many of the pearls and jewels which have come into her possession from the robbery of her Scottish prisoner by the rebel lords. Huge butterfly wings of gauze rise from the shoulders but give nothing ethereal to the appearance of the sovereign,—Elizabeth was of the earth earthy. Around her are grouped all the splendid of that golden age,—the grave prime minister, Cecil Burleigh, the gallant Leicester, the boy Essex, the splendid Sir Philip Sidney, together with all the foreign diplomats and beautiful women of the court.

In the space before her stands an equally imperious figure,—the sovereign of this island of Clare. What could have been her dress in those days three hundred years agone? How did they robe the dames of high estate in Ireland then, I wonder, and must continue to wonder, for there is no account left us, but I am sure she was a beauty with fair skin, brown eyes and a glory of red gold hair.

The Queen of England has just offered to make her a countess, and we can imagine the half amazed and wholly amused expression of her majestic countenance when the offer is coolly refused with the remark that "I consider myself just as great a Queen as your Majesty."

Then the Irishwoman went home and did things, short, sharp, and to the point, effective: secured possession of all the fortified castles of the island and all the treasures and men at arms, and there occurred that dismissal already recorded.

It had been agreed on her marriage that either party could terminate the matrimonial arrangement at a year's end by a simple announcement to the other. On the day in question the countess observed from one of the loopholes of Carrig-a-Hooly the approach of her liege lord, and thereupon, to surely forestall such action on his part, hailed him and announced that "all was off" between them, making no mention of a return of any of the castles, men, or treasures be they his or not. She should have been Queen of Scotland. She would promptly have settled the cases of each and every rebel lord from Moray down, and John Knox would have heard a truth or two which would have made his ears tingle,—neither could her Majesty of England have meddled so easily in the affairs of the northern kingdom.

As our car rolls onward round the bay towards Louisburgh, her island of Clare blocks the entrance to the westward. Rearing sharply its cliffs against a glittering sky, it strongly reminds one of the island of Capri and occupies about the same relative position here as that island does in the bay of Naples.

But the blue of these northern waters is to my thinking vastly different from that in the South. There is a sensuous cast to all the colouring around Naples, whilst here both heaven and sea are of a bright fair rain-washed blue. The air is full of health and life, the waters sparkle, and the strong winds force one to jam a cap down over the eyes and go for a brisk walk or sail, returning ravenous for one's dinner; whilst in the south

And one's body is very apt to contract a fever during the trance.

Personally in Naples, with all its charm and interest, I always feel that death stalks wide, the mortal part of me is forever in evidence. Here, a new lease of life and health comes with every intake of the glorious air.

The winds blow strongly to-day while over the mountains dense black clouds gloom, through whose shadows one brilliant shaft of sunlight strikes a white sail far out at sea.

On the rocks the kelp gatherers are abroad with their long rakes, gathering a slimy harvest. What a living thing that kelp seems to be. How quiet its slumbers in the dark pool of the rocks while the waters are afar out, but watch it when the tide turns. At the first ripple it startles into life and reaches out its long snake-like feelers towards the coming sea.

Leaving the ocean for a time and turning inland, we pass some bad roads, but finally mount upward until in the heart of the mountains and the wildest section of Connemara their surface becomes smoother and the wings come out on our hubs and the car skims birdlike onward.

Fortunately the day has become divine and sunlight and shadow chase each other in fascinating lights and shadows over the mountains. Up in the higher valleys where the white cottages are few and far between, the vast black turf fields stretch to where the brown mountains rise to the blue skies. Here and there the scarlet skirt of a peasant woman at work in a distant field glows against the brown earth, while donkey carts, each with a solitary old dame perched on a pile of turf, pass us now and then, the little beast which draws them paying us no attention, save by a pointing of the ears. This is not a holy day, so there are no fairs and fewer cattle on the highroads, hence fewer races, though now and then we do have a spirited brush, and several old women shake their fists at us as we pass by. Coasting down the hills which surround the lovely lake of Doo Lough, we come finally down by the shores of the harbour of Killary or Killary Bay, where the fleets of the nation may and do enter far inland in safety.

Lunching at Leenane in a comfortable and clean inn made an already pleasant day seem all the more enjoyable.

The road, from Leenane on, lay westward by the waters of the Sound, and then south and up until a superb panorama of sea and land was spread out before us.

Those who go yearly to some genteel watering place know little of the outer sea, never comprehend the majesty of the ocean as it rolls in on Ireland's western coast, a vast wash of wild waters, glorious and majestic, roaring around jagged cliffs, which appear actually at war with it, while the winds murmuring over bogs and lowlands one instant are in the next roaring outward to greet the ocean. All around here there is no sound of human life, and a strange sad sort of sunlight falls over the mountains and shimmers downward into the sea.

The desolation of this coast is intense to-day but how far more terribly desolate it must have appeared to the poor sailors on those hulking ships of the Armada, hurled to their destruction hereabouts. I doubt not but that the last thoughts of the poor wretches as they sank in these thundering surges were of the vine-clad sunny hills of far Andalusia with the tinkling of guitars and the music of the Danza they were never again to hear.

As we leave the sea and turn again inward, the scenery becomes wild in the extreme. Sombre mountains surround lonely valleys with here and there a lonely lake reflecting the sky. The roads on the whole are good, save for many ridges formed by the backbone of the old stone bridges. If the car does not slow down one is thrown out of one's seat, and some of these ridges would destroy if passed at full speed.

The higher we mount the more joyous the motion until we seem to be skimming like a swallow. One nasty angle almost causes our undoing, but it is passed in safety by the quick action of our chauffeur, who certainly understands well how to handle a motor, though I think he was thoroughly frightened that time; we came very near shooting down into the lake.

Orders are strict that no risk of destroying animals is to be run unless the safety of the car necessitates it, but to-day we did kill a poor pussy who jumped from a wall directly in our path, and not a yard away. It was done in a flash, and kitty's joyous days were over. Poor thing! as with us life was the best she had, and it is gone. The incident quite clouded the day for some time.

At another time a fine dog, a collie, sprang at us and was thrown down and the motor passed over him. I looked back, quite expecting to see his mangled body lying on the highway, but instead of that saw him take a stone wall in a fashion creditable to the best hunter in Ireland, and none the worse for his experience. But that does not often occur.[4]

It does not strike the traveller as singular that—while English is spoken by all—he hears so much of the ancient tongue in remote sections; there is the natural home for it: but I confess I was much astonished during a recent visit to Canada to find that, after one hundred and fifty years, from Montreal east, French is the language of the people. While in the larger cities English is of course spoken, it is not the prevailing tongue, and in all the small towns and rural districts French is the tongue, and thousands of the people cannot speak English at all. In one of the greater cities if a man would obtain a position in the police or fire departments he must be able to read, write, and speak French, but a Frenchman is not obliged to read, write, and speak English. All the estimates for public improvements are in French alone, though the bidders are all English or Americans, generally the latter. Of course, they must be translated into English by the bidders, and what an opportunity is here presented for breaking a contract by a claim of incorrect translation. In fact, it would seem to an outsider that Canada is much more loyal to France than to England, even after a century and a half of Saxon rule. Giving due allowance to the treaty with France and to the power of the Church of Rome, such a state of affairs at this date is singular to say the least.

As for the attempt in Ireland to revive the ancient Celtic amongst these people, personally I do not think it will be successful, nor do I understand the move; while it is well to keep it alive for students and savants, what possible good can it serve the desperately poor and ignorant of the land, how can they use it? At least so it appears to a looker-on. (I have not been able to extract a good reason for the move from any of its many advocates with whom I have conversed on this tour.)

Surely English is destined to be the language of men, not only in Ireland but all over the world, and to my thinking this is the greatest work accomplished by that nation. After all, is it not a case of the survival of the fittest, and can any one deny that that tongue is already the most widely spoken and more rapidly spreading than any or all others?

Go where you will you will find that next to the language of each country it is the one in use, and I believe that in generations to come it will wipe out all the trouble caused by the inhabitants of Babylon in their desire to get above high-water mark.

For professors and students it would be well to maintain these ancient tongues as long as possible, but surely the poor of Ireland could be benefited to a greater degree by other means than an attempt to restore to daily use the ancient, almost forgotten, and fast dying tongue of their forefathers.

As for the travellers in this land to-day it is confusing and irritating to be confronted by a sign-post of absolutely no value, intelligible only to those who know the Celtic tongue. The peasants cannot read them and do not require them, hence, to all concerned, they mean as much here as the verst posts do to a stranger in Russia.

As for the milestones, they tell a story hereabouts concerning what happened between two towns separated some eighteen miles from each other. The figures on the stones having become almost obliterated by time and weather an order was given to a workman in one of the towns to recut the lot. He took them up one by one and placed them in the proper order in his stoneyard, but when completed it is evident that, before the work of replacing them began, he must have celebrated the event in the usual manner. Certainly the fact remains that he began at the wrong end of the pile, placing the one marked "17" where the first stone should have been, and so on with the lot, the result being that sundry gentlemen the worse for wear coming from one town discovered that their utmost endeavours to reach home only took them farther afield—where they finally brought up is not related. As for the man from the other town, when at the end of the first mile "17" stared at him from the stone he became convinced that the devil was after him and shook his first at a solitary magpie which had just flown over his head. I must confess that I doubt these tales. However but for our maps we should have been completely astray in western Ireland for all the use the sign-posts were to us.

There is a charming little town at Recess, but unless you are a sportsman, not much of interest.

Letters from home necessitate B.'s return, and we must call at Kylemore Castle before we start. Distanced from Recess some thirteen miles, a journey thither and back would with horses necessitate a whole day's time, but with a motor it's only just around the block so to speak.

The morning is sunny and fair, and we drink in the rushing sea-breeze as we roll away over gentle hills and valleys between the higher mountains, and though the hills are treeless the whole panorama is attractive.

Our driver reports his petrol low, with none to be had at Recess, hence we must fill the tank at Kylemore sufficiently to get us to Galway if it can be done.

Kylemore Castle stands in a sheltered valley close by the sea though not in view of it. It faces a lovely lake and is really built on the side of the mountain which rises directly behind it to the height of two thousand feet.

Across the lake the view is blocked by a similar range. While the shrubbery is fine and the grass very luxuriant and green around the mansion, all the hills and mountains are absolutely treeless.

The place, but lately purchased by the Duke of M., was built by Mr. Henry at an expense, on the estate, of a million sterling. Reverses forced its sale, and it was bought by its present owner. There is nothing ancient, the house having but some fifty years to its credit, but it is capable of being, and, in the present owner's hands, will be made a charming dwelling-place, and certainly, swept by the winds of the North Atlantic, it must be at all seasons very healthy. Filled with a large company or with a few congenial people it should be an enjoyable spot.

Its gardens are very extensive and one passes through endless conservatories full of flowers and fruits. As we round a corner close to the stable, we encounter the quaint figure of a woman with straggling grey locks, tumbling down over a pallid face. In a dress of rags and barefooted, she is dancing a crazy jig all by herself. There are weird gleams in her eyes as they rove over the sombre mountains, seeking kindred spirits, I fancy, as she croons in a monotone the notes of some quaint melody which still drifts across her brain. She shows as she catches sight of our party that she is no respecter of persons as she grabs the Duke by the coat and won't let go, imploring him to "lock up the castle and I'll be round a Monday." When he implores her to put off her coming for a day or so she declines and sticks to "Monday." I cannot but doubt in some degree her insanity, at least it has not destroyed her womanly vanity, for when I tell her I want to take her picture, she at once attempts to smooth her hair and dress, and striking what she thinks will be a becoming pose, tells me to "go ahead," and after the snap remarks, "You had better take another for fear that is a failure."

Yesterday, having gone to the kitchen of the castle for her "bit of meat," she found a new cook, who, not knowing about her, ordered her out, whereupon she seized a knife from the table and there ensued a handicap, go as you please, all over the place, with the cook in the lead and Biddy a close second. After that she got her meat in peace.

As we return from an inspection of the grounds she is being conducted off the terrace by the butler. But Biddy has a mind of her own and no one save this butler could get her away, if it suited her to remain, which it generally does. We are told she is deeply in love with him and that there is a photo extant with Biddy on her knees, clasping his legs and imploring him to marry her. Now the butler is a most stately personage; he has the cast of countenance of the great Louis of France, the same beak-like nose and downward sweep of the face lines running from it, the same haughty pose of the head, in fact, deck him in a high wig, court suit, and ruffles, and great red heels and you have Louis le Grand; take them away and you have the butler, the object of Biddy's devotion, to whom it makes no difference whether he be king or butler. But Biddy in her rags is after all the most picturesque thing about Kylemore; her eyes are bright if she is crazy—but where in all the world will you find brighter eyes than amongst the beggars of Ireland, and they seem equally pleased whether one gives or not (Biddy did not beg, neither did she hesitate to take what we gave her). Like all beggars, many of them are rogues, but, ah, risk that, for you may by your half crown relieve for the time real heart-breaking misery, and such poverty as you cannot conceive of. Go to Achill if you would be convinced of that.

Yesterday while watching a train pass at Recess a boy approached and just looked at me, but with a look of such hungry suffering that a shilling was promptly forthcoming. Then I questioned him, and found that he had been ill and could at best make but a sixpence a day, that his brother drove the car for the hotel, getting as wages only the uncertain tips of the visitors, which, never many, in this remote spot are indeed few and far between in this bad season. His father had worked in the neighbouring marble quarries, but pestered and beset by a law-suit over his little hovel had, as the boy expressed it, "gone dotty," and could work no more. The mother did what she could and a sister was a cripple. So that all they had to live upon was what he and his brother could earn.

Just as he finished a ducal train rolled by. His Grace was transporting his family and effects from one great castle to another. Surely the contrasts in life are heartrending, yet I doubt not that this Duke will and does do all he can to relieve the sufferings of the poor on his estates—sufferings intensified and made all the more horrible by the unprincipled leaders of the leagues in this land, and masters of strikes in ours and others.

But to return to Kylemore, the interior of the castle at present is in a state of transition, so that it is impossible to describe it. Built against the side of the mountain, some of its staircases are literally laid on the solid rock. Many of the rooms are spacious and stately and in the hands of the present owners will doubtless be made very handsome.

The glimpses of mountains and lake from its windows are entrancing. On the whole I think one might come to love Kylemore very dearly. It has cost vast sums of money as it stands and much more will be expended before the end, if indeed the end ever is reached in these great places where the expenditure of money is concerned. This one will require a fortune to maintain.

Of the two Irish seats of the Duke of Manchester I should much prefer Kylemore to Tanderagee. While the latter is beautiful in its park and great trees, the former is a place of endless possibilities. Shooting and fishing are abundant and of the best, whilst to the lovers of the picturesque the mountains are an eternal joy, and close by is the jobling and sobbing of the sea. Its quaint people are an endless source of amusement and study. To enjoy it one must dwell there, and I depart with regret at our short sojourn or rather call.

Our petrol has run out and there is none in this locality. However, the chauffeur manages to buy some from the man at the station and with a sputter and roar we are off and away through the mountain glens, turning for a last glimpse of Kylemore, and her little church, both gleaming white amongst the forests by the lake, and guarded by the brooding mountains.

CHAPTER VII

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.

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.