Thomas O'Neill Russell

“ It is not until one is on the top of Uisneach that he finds out how high it is, for the view from its summit is extensive and beautiful almost beyond power of description. The country on every side of it consists of some of the richest pasture lands, not only in Ireland, but in the world. No matter in what direction one looks, a vast, undulated expanse of green meets the eye. If the view from Uisneach is seen in autumn, when the too few and far between grain-fields are turning yellow, it is as fair a sight as human eye ever gazed on. ”

“ Even the great rushing river, as it glides down the gentle slope of the rapids, makes no noise except a deep, musical murmur that would lull to sleep rather than startle. The rapids of Doonass form a scene so incomparably lovely, and so unlike anything to be seen in Great Britain, or to be seen in any other part of Ireland, that it is a wonder they are not better known. They can be reached best from Limerick, being not over three miles from that city. ”

“ It is strange how it was that the ancient or rather the mediæval Irish, who knew how to erect such beautiful and enduring stone and mortar structures as the round towers, and such gems of architectural beauty as Cormac’s Chapel is, and as Mellifont Abbey certainly was, should have housed their kings and chiefs in dwellings of wood, whose only defence was an earthen rampart surmounted by a palisade of stakes, or in a Cyclopean fortress of dry stones. It is absolutely certain that not a single castle built of stones and mortar existed in Ireland prior to the Anglo-French invasion. ”

“ It is not only at sunset or sunrise that Irish cloud scenery is fine; for often during even a wet summer, when the rain ceases for a [Pg 395] time, and the sun appears, the sky becomes what it is hardly incorrect to call a wonderland of beauty, with its “temples of vapour and hills of storm.” But the real glories of Irish cloud scenery are its sunsets. Ireland is, beyond any other country perhaps in the world, the land of gorgeous sunsets. Sometimes they are such wonders of golden glory that even the most stolid peasant gazes on them with emotion. ”

“ There is nothing like the Lakes of Killarney in the environs of Dublin, and Dublin Bay is hardly equal to Clew Bay; but barring those two gems of scenic loveliness, it is questionable if there is, for beauty alone, leaving sublimity aside, anything in Ireland that surpasses the immediate environs of Dublin, without going further north than Howth, or further south than Bray. Every inch of the country round Dublin has some peculiar scenic charm of its own. ”

“ The tyranny and folly of man may mar towns and turn fields into wildernesses, but they cannot mar nature. If no steam-boats plough the waters of Loch Ree, and if men have given place to cattle and sheep on its banks, it is still as beautiful as ever. Its sinuous shores are still as fair to the eye as they were fifty years ago, when a teeming population lived on them, and when twenty thousand people might be seen at the annual regatta that used to be held every autumn on its waters. Nothing less than an earthquake could destroy the beauty of Loch Ree. ”

“ The isolated, almost sea-surrounded rock on which it stands, the great bridge that connects it with the mainland, the narrow and dangerous footpath overlooking horrible depths, and over which the castle can only be entered, make it one of the grandest and most suggestive ruins in the world. Dunluce is a revelation. It shows, perched on its storm-beaten, once impregnable rock, the awful savagery of the time when might was the only law recognised by humanity; and that only a few centuries ago life and property were no safer in Christendom than they are to-day in the Soudan. ”

“ It is, more than any large place in Ireland, a city of hills and hollows. Some of its streets are very steep, rather too much so for pleasant walking. But this hillyness makes it all the more picturesque, and makes the drainage all the better. Cork is a beautiful city, and—surrounded by a beautiful country. If it has not the busy appearance of Belfast, or the metropolitan appearance of Dublin, it is, nevertheless, a fine city, and on account of its magnificent harbour, it has, in all probability, a great and prosperous future before it. ”

“ The ecclesiastics of ancient Ireland seem to have been gifted with an extraordinary amount of appreciation for the beautiful and unique in nature. The wilder and the more beautiful a place was, the more it seems to have attracted them. Cashel’s solitary Rock, Glendaloch’s gloomy vale, and this barren sandhill overlooking the most peculiar scenery in all the island, were the places in which they reared their most cherished fanes and most beautiful buildings. ”

“ The islands seem innumerable, and the shores are so indented with bays, and the lake itself so pierced by jutting headlands, that on sailing on Loch Erne it is often impossible to know an island from a peninsula, or a peninsula from an island. There is certainly no lake in Ireland or in Great Britain whose shores are so indented as are those of Loch Erne. The great charm of its shores and islands is their roundness and their greenness. ”

“ No more beautiful piece of architecture in the way of a tower ever was erected. It seems to be absolute perfection. The most skilled modern artisan in stone could not find an imperfection in it. It is built entirely of cut stones. The roof or dome is made of lozenge-shaped stones, fitted so closely and finished so well that time and weather seem to have passed over it in vain, for it is, as far as can be seen from the ground at its base, as perfect as it ever was. Of all round towers in Ireland, it is the most beautiful and perfect. ”

“ If there is any country in Europe about the scenery and antiquities of which an interesting book could be written, it is Ireland. In no other country are scenery and antiquities so closely allied, for the finest remains of her ancient ruins are generally found where the scenery is most weird, most strange, or most beautiful. In no other country, perhaps, can so many places be identified with historic events, or historic personages, as in Ireland. It contains more relics of a long vanished past than any other European land. Great Britain seems a new country compared with Ireland. ”

“ It would be hard to find anywhere in the world another sea coast of the same length as that from Cape Clear in the south to Inishowen in the north, where there is so much to be seen of the grand, the terrible, and the beautiful. If the mountains on the coasts of Norway are higher, if its fiords penetrate further inland, and if in some places the shining glacier may be seen from them, there is not such astonishing variety of scenery on the coasts of Norway as there is in the west coast of Ireland. ”

“ This fiord, or narrow sea loch, is one of the most splendid harbours, not only in Ireland, but in the world, with not only complete shelter from winds from all points, but with depth of water enough to float the biggest ship that ever has been or ever will be built. But, unfortunately, there is little to attract commerce to these desolate shores, where there are no large towns, and only a sparse population. It has been said by some who have seen almost all the fiords of Norway, that there are few of them superior to the Killaries in everything that constitutes beauty, sublimity, and wildness. ”

“ If the monks of the early centuries of Christian Ireland were as narrow-minded as the Four Masters, we never, probably, would know anything about Cuchulainn, Queen Meave, Conall Carnach, or any of the heroes of pagan Ireland, round whom there is woven such a wondrous web of legend, romance, and song. Every patriotic Irishman should revere the memories of those liberal-minded monks who handed down to us the doings of their pagan forefathers. ”

“ In its depths laughs or murmurs a limpid stream that can rarely be noticed, such is the thickness and luxuriance of the trees and shrubs that overhang it. Powerscourt Waterfall is close by the Dargle. The river that forms it leaps down a rock nearly three hundred feet in height, into a valley of brightest verdure, covered with a thick growth of primeval oak-trees. An enchanting spot—which it is gross folly to attempt to describe—in a land of towering hills and flower-crowned rocks. Its wildness, winsomeness, and loveliness must be seen in order to form anything like a just idea of it. ”

“ It must be borne in mind that this excessive moisture of atmosphere is what has given the south-west of Ireland, and England too, their exquisite charm of verdure and wild flowers. When a fine day comes after rain in summer or autumn all Nature seems to laugh. Flowers of all hues open their petals, birds in multitudes begin to sing, and wild bees and hosts of insects make the air musical with their hum. The American tourist need have no fear when insects are mentioned, for the mosquito is unknown in Killarney. ”

“ Loch Arrow is the least known of all the beautiful lakes of Ireland, and beautiful it is in very nearly the highest style of beauty. There are no mountains round Loch Arrow, and none to be seen from its waters; but its numberless attractions in the way of wooded islands, bold promontories, and swelling shores render it one of the lovely lakes of Ireland ”

“ A scene of such great beauty and uniqueness, so near a fine and interesting city like Limerick, to be so little known to those who go so far in search of the beautiful, shows how much the world at large, and even the Irish themselves, have to learn about Ireland. If the rapids of Doonass were in England, or even in the United States, there would be not only one, but perhaps three or four hotels on their banks,—hotels which would be full of guests every summer. ”

“ Cong is very nearly on the road to Connemara, which, with the exception of parts of Donegal, is the wildest, most savage, and most extraordinary part of Ireland. Those who want to see all the wildness of Connemara, its chaotic mountains, its innumerable lakes, far-entering bays, and illimitable bogs, should drive from Cong, or from Oughterard to Clifden, and go from there to Galway by rail. Whoever travels that route will see some of the most charming as well as some of the most terrific scenery in Ireland. ”

“ The ruins of the Monastery, and the ruins of its adjoining buildings, are covered with the most luxuriant growth of ivy to be seen on any ruins in Ireland. The thickness of its stems, and the size and deep green of its leaves, are remarkable. This extraordinary growth of ivy must eventually tumble down the walls. It may preserve them for a time, but will destroy them in the long run. But without its ivy and its limpid river, the ruined Monastery of Boyle, grand and interesting as it is, would lose a great deal of its attractions. ”

“ If there were the best hotels in the world at every romantic spot on the west coast of Ireland it would never attract visitors, and never would be known as it should be, and as its wondrous grandeur and beauty entitle it to be, until large and commodious steamers were provided in which people could live, if they chose, while being brought from one place of attraction to another, or from one town to another. ”

“ On Loch Erne, especially on the upper lake, change of scene takes place every minute. It is a continual surprise of green islands, flowery promontories, swelling hills, and tortuous passages, and is on a fine summer or autumn day something to enchant even the most indifferent to the beauties of nature. ”

“ Irish has completely died out of the country surrounding Athlone, save in the south-western corner of the county Roscommon, where some old people still speak it. There is something inexpressibly sad in the fading away of any form of National speech, but, above all, in the fading away of a tongue so old and once so cultivated as Irish. It seems to forebode not only the death of all real National aspirations, but the death of heart and soul. It seems to show that Philistinism is rapidly driving away sentiment from the Irish people. ”

“ But even the Irish, and above all, the natives of Dublin, want to be told something that may be new to some of them about a city which so many of them seem neither to love nor admire as they should. There is, unfortunately, a certain class of people in Dublin who, although many of them were born there, think that it is one of the most backward and unpleasant places in Europe. They do not admire the beauty of its environs, and will not acknowledge willingly that it has been improved so much as it has been during the last twenty-five years. ”

“ There is not room to show the public much more than half the objects of antiquity. They are stowed away in drawers, and have been so for nearly ten long years. They might as well be in the earth from which they were recovered as be packed into drawers in a back room where none but officials can see them. If there was a decent and proper national spirit among the Irish people, such treatment of Ireland’s wonderful and unique antiquities would not be tolerated for a single week. Her antiquities are among the chief glories of Ireland. ”

“ Those old, barbaric Irish kings and chieftains must have been lovers of the beautiful, for they almost invariably fixed their strongholds not only in the fairest parts, but in places commanding the fairest prospects. There are hardly two other places in Ireland the surroundings of which are more beautiful than those of Tara and Uisneach, or from which fairer prospects are to be seen. They were, from far-back antiquity, the seats of those by whom the country was supposed to be ruled, for it often happened that he who was styled chief king had but little control over his vassals. ”

“ But whatever mercantile prosperity Galway enjoyed some centuries ago, very little of it unfortunately remains; for of all Irish towns the decrease of its population has been the most terrible. In 1845 it contained very close on 35,000 inhabitants, in 1891 it had only 14,000! It is painful to walk in the outskirts of the town and pass through whole streets in which nothing remains save the ruins of cottages. Galway ought to be a prosperous place, for it is situated on a noble bay that forms a spacious harbour, sheltered from the fury of the Atlantic by the Isles of Arran. ”

“ In the latter country we miss the dun, the rath, the lis, the round tower and the sepulchral mound, some of which are found in almost every square mile of Ireland. And coming down to later times, when men began to erect structures of stone, we find the remains of castles and keeps in such extraordinary numbers that we wonder for what purpose so many strongholds were erected. Counting raths, duns, lises, cromlechs, round towers, crumbling castles, and deserted fanes, Ireland may be called a land of ruins beyond any other country in Europe. ”

“ No one, whether an Irishman or a stranger, can look on the vast mound and vast earthen ramparts that mark the home of him whom the most trustworthy of Irish annalists, Tighearnach, calls fortissimus heros Scottorum, without feelings of indignation and shame—indignation at the way one of the greatest and most interesting monuments of Irish antiquity has been profaned, and shame that so little reverence for their country’s past should be found among the Irish people. ”

“ Both bays are beautiful rather than sublime; they are bright and cheerful rather than dark and frowning. With all the wildness and grandeur of the many far-entering fiords of the coast of Scotland, with all the Alpine glories of their shores, there is not one of them that for beauty alone can be compared with Clew Bay. ”

“ If it and Loch Ree had the mountains of Killarney, Killarney might well tremble for the fame it enjoys of being the most beautiful of Irish lakes.
Loch Erne is divided into upper and lower lakes. The clean and thriving town of Enniskillen is situated on the straight, or narrow river, that joins the two lakes; but it may be said that there are not two lakes, but only one, for Enniskillen is situated where the lake narrows into what might be called a river, but a river full of islands and bays, just as the upper lake is. Its multitude of islands is the charm of Loch Erne. ”

“ If any one wanted to know how vast the bog of Allen is, he should ascend the hill of Allen, from which he will see a very large part of it. If he is in any doubt as to the exact place in which Finn had his dwelling and dun, he will at least be in the locality that has given birth to the most colossal folk-lore that perhaps ever existed,—stories that in the far-back past, before the world was tormented by newspapers and bewildered by politicians, beguiled many a tedious hour and delighted many a sad heart. ”

“ Of all the great lakes of Ireland there is none so little known to tourists or the public in general as Loch Ree. It is the fourth in size, Loch Neagh, Loch Erne, and Loch Corrib being the only Irish lakes of greater extent, but none of them exceeds Loch Ree in beauty. Loch Erne is a noble sheet of water, and is adorned with many beautiful islands, but owing to its peculiar shape, one cannot take in all its charms from any point on its shores ”