class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 24]"/> regular coterie of wits—among the best known being a Dowden, father or grandfather of the illustrious man of letters who is to-day one of the chief lights in Trinity College. The late Provost, Dr. Salmon, a still greater luminary, came also from the southern county—as did half a dozen more of the Fellows whose names are familiar enough to all in Ireland; though some, perhaps, enriched legend and chronicle rather than history, and survive as remembered oddities—after all, not the least loveable of survivals.

The south coast of Cork, from Youghal to the Kenmare River, is the pick of Ireland for yachtsmen. Endless is the succession, from Cork itself with all its lesser creeks and havens, Carrigalo, Carrigaline, and Ringabella, on past Kinsale harbour, Courtmacsherry and Clonakilty bays, Roscarbery, Glandore, and west to Baltimore and Roaring Water, off which lies Cape Clear. Then past Mizen Head, on the west shore, are greater bays, harbours not for yachts, but for navies—Dunmanus, Bantry, and the Kenmare River, whose northern shore belongs to Kerry, but which has a frontier certainly in paradise.

I write of what I have seen, in the Kenmare River: all these southern harbourages are to me only names on the map, save for the quaint little bay of Roscarbery and the long winding creek of Baltimore—both of which I know only as winter shows them, and shows them from the land. Yet of the people of Roscarbery I form at least some picture from the sketches drawn by the two ladies who relate the varied Experiences of an Irish R.M.—though West Cork needs to be supplemented by knowledge of Connemara, to realize the scenes that they have in mind. And from Baltimore, or rather from a mile outside it, I carry away a picture of a congregation dividing after mass into two rival political assemblies, and the one that I addressed consisted largely of women wearing the great black cloak, with black hood giving an odd framework to the wearer's face, which is one of the few and cherished relics of traditional costume. I was told on good authority (when I lamented myself) that if I had the women I had the votes, for West Cork was in all matters under female governance. But of that I cannot testify.

Baltimore is one of the great fishing stations of Ireland, and to it the population of Cape Clear comes for most necessaries of life. Along that coast many craft are familiar, but an odd name hangs about one set: the fishermen from near Dungarvan are always known as "the Turks". In 1631 Algerine pirates made a descent on the town of Baltimore, sacked it and carried a hundred of its folk into slavery: and it was a fisherman from Dungarvan who (under threat of death) piloted the corsairs.

All this shore had fine natural advantages for smuggling which in old days were not neglected: and still, I am told, certain places could be named where cigars and wines of excellent quality can be had at surprisingly moderate price.

Kinsale is a greater haven, fit in old days to be the rival of Cork; and the town there speaks of prosperous merchant folk, with its quaint weather-slated houses, each having the little bow-window which eighteenth-century mariners would seem to have specially affected, and its very old-world bowling green.

SHANDON STEEPLE, FROM THE RIVER LEE

Here was the theatre on which Ireland saw a great game played out—the last and losing throw in the war of O'Neill and O'Donnell against the forces of Elizabeth. At the long last, the promised help from the Continent had come; a Spanish fleet under Don Juan d'Aquila entered the harbour, seized and held the town, which was beleaguered by the English (and Irish allies) under Mountjoy and Carew. O'Neill and O'Donnell, marching down from the north, drew an outer line about the besiegers, and on December 21st battle was joined. Tyrone would have waited, wisely, till the siege could be raised by cutting the English communications, and the force attacked on the march. But Red Hugh was always bad at waiting, and forced the attack. The combination failed, the Spaniards gave no help, and Mountjoy drove back the Ulstermen. D'Aquila surrendered on good terms, and O'Donnell in hot fury went to Spain to complain of his incompetence and to press for a new expedition. But Elizabeth had her agents in Spain also, and one of them did her such service as was freely rendered in those days. O'Donnell drank a poisoned cup at Simancas, and died of it, and the State Papers contain the poisoner's account of his own exploit and demand for fitting payment. It was only after this that Carew was able to write of Pacata Hibernia, an Ireland, where, in truth, he and his had made a wilderness and called it peace. They themselves tell how from the Rock of Cashel to Dingle Bay the voice of man or the lowing of cattle could not be heard.

Loveliest of all regions in Ireland, this country of Desmond has suffered worst of all. Elizabeth's soldiers attempted here, and nearly carried out, a complete extermination of the native race by the sword and by starvation. And when after centuries the folk had multiplied again and were, by universal testimony, gay even in their rags, the famine of 1847 fell upon them, and in the blackest horrors of that time Skibbereen and West Cork attained an awful notoriety. Nowhere else did such heaps of famished and plague-stricken dead defy all efforts even to bury them.

The shadow of those days has not yet entirely passed: but the stranger will see little of it, following the famous route which leads up the Lee valley to Macroom (where the rail ends), and so past Inchigeela and Ballingarry, past Gouganebarra by Keimaneigh, through the mountains to Bantry and Glengariff. And here confession must be made. I have never seen these famous beauties. I have followed the Lee only to Inchigeela where it breaks into a score of channels between little islands covered with scrub oak and birch and hazel, a piece of river scenery whose like I never saw. And I have driven along the road from Macroom to Killarney, along the Sullane River to Ballyvourney, which tens of thousands know as "the metropolis of Irish-speaking Ireland". For, as it chances, Cork alone, of the more prosperous counties, has kept the Irish speech, and kept it in a form the least modified by modern simplifications. Irish is still to-day the language of well-to-do and well-educated men and women. My host at Ballyvourney had received his education in Paris, more than that, had been through all the Franco-Prussian war, and had seen more of the world than is given to most men; but for many years he has been back, a kind of king among his own people, and a real repository of the ancient scholarship and traditions of the Gael. At Ballingeary, a few miles from him, was founded the first of those "summer schools" where men and women, boys and girls, of all sorts and conditions, and from many corners of the world, unite for common study of the noble language which careless generations had nearly suffered to die out. That settlement is now one of the objects of interest on the coach road, and travellers, if not tourists, may well find it the most interesting of all.

Bantry is one of the great naval stations, one of the great recruiting grounds for the navy. I saw it, as it should be seen, from the sea. It, too, is associated with the memory of one of those failures which stud the course of Irish history like sinister beacons: