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II

If I had to see Munster by motor car, my disposition would be to start from Waterford, follow the valley of the Suir up to Clonmel, then strike north to Cashel and see it. All the monuments can be seen in a few hours, and no ruin or building that I ever visited has so intelligent a custodian. From Cashel I would go to Holycross, that exquisite remnant of monastic splendour, rich in historic memories, and thence push out across Tipperary to the north-west, steering for the gap between Keeper Mountain and the Silver Mines. This would bring me out of the Golden Vale, which is in truth the valley of the Suir, and into the basin of a still greater and more famous river, at its most famous point. For from this gap the route would descend to the Shannon, at the narrow gorge below Lough Derg where all its vast volume of water is contracted to the ford and pass at Killaloe. Here, if you will, is beauty: long peaceful levels above the weir where lake passes imperceptibly into broad river; below it huge swirling rapids, interspersed with wide, smooth, yet swift running salmon pools, all down the twelve miles of river to the head of the tideway at Limerick. And here, too, are historic memories more glorious than can be matched elsewhere in Ireland. It was here at the outflow of the lake, where is an unsuspected ford, that Sarsfield crossed (led by the rapparee, Galloping Hogan), on the raid when he stole out of Limerick along the Clare shore and so to this ford, on his way to lie in wait on the slopes of Keeper for William's expected battering train. On your road from Cashel you will have passed near Ballyneety, where he and his troopers surprised the sleeping convoy and blew the heavy guns into scattered shreds—a splendid foray, splendidly preluding Limerick's heroic and successful resistance to the great Dutchman.

But here at Killaloe, and specially at this ford above it, where great earthworks mark the ancient fort of Beul Boroimhe, are memories more honoured than hang about even Sarsfield's name. Here it was that in the tenth century Brian Boru, Brian of the Tribute, built up with his Dalcassians of Clare the power that learnt how to resist the Danes, whose plundering forays threatened to blot out civilization altogether from northern Europe. The first defeat of moment inflicted on them was at Sollohed in the Golden Vale, near Limerick Junction, where the forces of Thomond were led by Brian's brother, King Mahon. But it was Brian who as a mere youth refused to join Mahon in submission (by any pact, however veiled) to the invaders: it was Brian who had fought them in desperate guerrilla warfare through the hills of Clare, and along the banks of the Shannon, till he was brought down to fifteen men, and Mahon asked him in the council chamber, "Where hast thou left thy followers?" And Brian answered, as the Irish poem tells:

It was Brian who in that council caused appeal to be made to the Clan Dalcais whether they would have peace or war, and "War", they answered, "and this was the voice of hundreds as the voice of one man".

The work that was begun at Kincora was finished sixty years later outside Dublin when the Danish menace was finally broken and dispelled on the shore by Clontarf: and in that fight the old lord of Kincora, Brian of the Tribute, High King by then of all Ireland, fell gloriously in the hour of a victory almost too dearly won.

You can see in Killaloe the little old church, built somewhere in the eighth or ninth century, with its high-pitched roof of stone slabs, under which Brian worshipped more than ten centuries ago. Beside it is the cathedral built by his descendants, and adorned with noble archways in the rich Romanesque style of native Irish architecture.

It is probable—certain, indeed, to my thinking—that Brian's rath and strong place of abode was where the market-place of Killaloe still is, on the top of the high ground to which the streets climb from the river and the churches. The fort at the ford is called in Irish Beul Boroimhe, that is the "Mouth of the Tribute": and one can easily see how it came by its name, for here was the strategic position which commanded all the traffic from the long navigable reaches of the upper Shannon and its lakes to the tideway at Limerick. Here portage must be made, here toll could be taken; and not only on the river traffic but on all the cattle that came down from Clare into Tipperary by this the one really practicable ford.

BLARNEY CASTLE

From Killaloe to Limerick the road is pleasant, along the ever-widening valley which is blocked by Keeper to the north, but trends opening and widening towards West Clare and the sea. Yet to understand the beauty and the charm of that characteristic piece of Irish landscape, you should be taken down the stream in the characteristic boat of those waters, the long pole-driven cot. Shooting the rapids in these craft is a wonderful sensation, and even on a chill day in February the tumult of lashing water sends warmth into the blood. So you can follow the stream till at last below Athlunkard bridge you reach the long Lax Weir, which keeps the memory of Scandinavian settlers in its name (lax is Norse for salmon, to-day as then), and the memory of early Norman settlement in the odd little tower built in the middle of the weir to command the passage, as long ago as the days of King John.

In Limerick itself King John's Castle with its great rounded towers frowns over the Bridge of the Broken Treaty, where Sarsfield and his men covenanted with William for protection to the property and the religious freedom of Irish Catholics, and then took ship for France—first of the Wild Geese, founders of the Irish Brigade—leaving no guardians but honour and justice to enforce the sanction of the treaty, guardians that were of no avail. Much has been written of the siege of Derry and in praise of its heroic defenders: but too little is known of Limerick's resistance, when the French officer, whom James II had left in charge, declared that the walls could be battered down with roasted apples, and Sarsfield answered that defended they should and must be. You can see the mark of William's cannon balls on the old wall near the convent hospital east of the town: single marks on the dark limestone here and there, but at the angle of the wall, where the Black Battery stood, and where a breach was made, there is clear trace still of the desperate assault—from which William's best troops, after they had effected a lodgment, were finally driven back pell-mell.

From Limerick the West Clare Railway (whose vagaries have been made more famous than I ever knew them to deserve) will carry you through Ennis, passing near Bunratty Castle, Quin Abbey, and many another place of fame, to the coast where Lahinch offers one of the most popular golf links in Ireland. It is a wild wind-swept coast, a wild surf beats on the strand that divides Lahinch from Liscannor, and north of it are the great cliffs of Moher. Lisdoonvarna is near by, a spa much frequented by Irishmen, more specially by the Irish clergy. But the favourite place of all