William Eleroy Curtis

“ The roofs of the cars are arranged with comfortable seats, from which one can see everything within the range of human vision and gratify his curiosity about what is behind the high stone walls, green with lichen and ivy and overhung with lustrous boughs. There isn’t much satisfaction going about in an automobile in the immediate vicinity of Dublin, because the roadways are mere tunnels between walls eight feet high and overhung with foliage, which makes a perpetual twilight, a damp, cool atmosphere, a dustless ride, and a picturesqueness that an artist would admire. ”

“ Here and there the towers of a castle or the chimneys of a villa arise from banks of foliage, and, perched along the bluff above the seashore, like the chalets of Switzerland, are comfortable cottages and mansions in which rich people from Dublin dwell. Clinging to the side of the bluff and protected by a stone wall is a splendid roadway encircling the entire bay, quite as beautiful, although on a smaller scale, as the Corniche road from Nice to Monte Carlo. ”

“ The American tourist usually lands at Queenstown, runs up to Cork, rides out to Blarney Castle in a jaunting car, and across to Killarney with a crowd of other tourists on the top of a big coach, then rushes up to Dublin, spends a lot of money at the poplin and lace stores, takes a train for Belfast, glances at the Giant’s Causeway, and then hurries across St. George’s Channel for London and the Continent. Hundreds of Americans do this each year, and write home rhapsodies about the beauty of Ireland. ”

“ The demonstrations of affection left no doubt, but all the world loves a lover, and we rejoiced with them. In the long line that stood before the ticket seller’s window at the railway station they chattered unconsciously like so many sparrows, their arms around each other, with an occasional embrace, a sly kiss and a slap to pay for it, tender caresses upon the shoulder or the head, and other expressions of a happiness that could not have been concealed. ”

“ It is a delightful drive, for the suburbs of Cork are surrounded by fertile farms and the pastures are illuminated with buttercups in summer, and inclosed in hedges of hawthorn that are bright with blossoms. All nature seems to be in a cheerful mood these days, and the frequent rains, which interfere considerably with motoring, give an appearance of freshness to all the vegetation and a vitality to the trees and plants and flowers and everything growing. That is peculiar to Ireland. ”

“ They all have a certain resemblance, and the latter are like Alpine lakes in miniature—not so much mountain, not so much water, but a similar canopy of blue sky and green settings. The mountains were grouped by a competent Artist and are embroidered and fringed with foliage, but are bare as a bone on their slopes and peaks. They are good for nothing but scenery. The grass is so scarce that it doesn’t pay to pasture cattle over them, and a goat would have nervous prostration from loneliness. ”

“ The rocks reach far away to the westward and down into the cold blue of an uneasy ocean, which beats impetuously upon the outer walls, but the water is seldom disturbed by more than a ripple within the bay. For a combination of ocean, mountains, lakes, rocks, waterfalls, forests, and flowers I have never seen the like, and any one can easily understand why Glengariff is called the most beautiful spot in Ireland. ”

“ Large sums of money have been spent to deepen the channel and furnish conveniences for handling the trade, and vessels drawing twenty feet of water can come up to the very center of the city at low tide, where they discharge Welsh coal and English merchandise and receive agricultural produce, bacon, woolen goods, hides, and leather, and various other products of Ireland. The walls of the quay are hung with unconscious artistic taste every morning with fishing nets. The fishermen bring their catch up the river to the very door of the market and spread their nets over the gray stones to dry. ”

“ The driver of a stage in Ireland doesn’t flourish and crack his whip like the gentlemen who pursue that line of business in Montana and Colorado. He is usually a talkative chap, and tells interesting stories with a deep, rich brogue and quaint wit that is charming, but he drives quietly through the villages and pulls up at his destination as modestly as if he were on a cart instead of a coach full of tourists. ”

“ The village of Killarney is unattractive and untidy, but it is a busy place. One doesn’t understand why in a country where there is so much room to spare, the villages should not be made up of detached cottages with gardens and lawns, hedges and shade trees, instead of sections of solid blocks that look as if they had been cut out of the tenement house districts of crowded cities. Killarney is a solid mass of brick and mortar, with stuccoed fronts, painted a dingy yellow, without the slightest thing to relieve the monotony until you suddenly pass the last house and the green fields begin. ”

“ There are several drawbacks to motoring in Ireland, the chief of which is that the country is so short on good hotels and so long on showers. The next is the inability to see through or over walls of stone and hedges that rise twice as high as one’s head. Nevertheless, wherever there is much to see and little time to see it in, one has to put up with some annoyances, and an automobile is no longer a luxury or a mere convenience, but an actual necessity.
The Irish climate is like the Irish character. ”

“ I don’t suppose there is any city in the world where there is so much drunkenness among women as there is in Dublin, except it be Glasgow and Edinburgh, although the number of drunken men arrested is not so much larger than the average in other cities of Europe and the United States. And what is even more lamentable, the public is so hardened to the repulsive spectacle that it does not attract as much curiosity as the appearance of an ordinary drunken man upon the streets of Chicago or New York. ”

“ I asked the school-teachers and others, and they all say that the politeness of the Irish peasants, like their pride, is inborn and final proof that they are the descendants of kings. This pride is a strange thing, and it is most surprising. Every woman you find in a soiled and ragged dress in a wretched cabin receives you as her equal and talks with dignity and without restraint, and Mr. Duke, manager of the Eccles Hotel, told me this morning of a mountain peasant whose raggedness aroused his sympathy, but who would not accept a suit of clothes. ”

“ A railway was built from Galway along the edge of the ocean to Clifden a few years ago, and the track hugs the coast as closely as possible. An hour after leaving Galway nature begins to disclose her unfriendliness, the mountains begin to loom up to a height of two thousand and twenty-two hundred feet, the landscape becomes stern and forbidding, and there is no vegetation except heather, which, when in full bloom, adds a purple hue to the wilderness. ”

“ At Glengariff I got my first chance to observe the work of the Congested Districts Board through which the government is trying to relieve the distress of the poor and make life worth living for those wretched but courageous souls who dwell always in the mists of the mountains and among the moorlands and the peat bogs on the west coast of Ireland. They are the poorest, the least nourished, and the most helpless portion of the population. They are scattered widely. The arable soil is so scarce that they cannot live in communities and survive. ”

“ I have said several times and will be apt to keep on saying—for it is the most interesting and the truest thing in Ireland—that the fields are greener and the foliage has a deeper tint than anywhere else I have been. And although it rains half the time and showers are more plentiful than sunshine, they make the grass and the leaves and the flowers more beautiful and rich in color and give old Mother Earth a brighter robe.
The horses run on the turf, and there is no such thing as a trotting race. All of the entries are from breeding farms, not from sporting stables. ”

“ John Redmond, in a speech in the House of Commons, said that “the agricultural laborers of Ireland had been living under conditions which were absolutely fatal to health and the habits of cleanliness, and which, in almost any other country in the world, would have proved fatal to religion and morality as well. But the Irish agricultural laborers are a remarkable race of men, highly intelligent, keen and brave, patriotic, and self-sacrificing in their patriotism. They have preserved through poverty and squalor a deep religious, spiritual feeling, and the highest possible standard of morality.” ”

“ Little arms of water reach up among the rocks that inclose it, and, when the tide goes out, it discloses deep beds of wondrous seaweed, curious vegetable and animal forms that Nature in her fantastic moods has designed in her studio under the waters of the sea. In the foreground at the right is a landing place for the little steamer that comes over from Bantry twice a day, and beyond it, rising from a rocky eminence, are the ruins of an ancient castle with a tower intact that was once a stronghold of the O’Sullivans, when they were kings in these parts. ”

“ But what spoils it all to the people of Ireland is that these officials receive their appointments from what they consider an alien authority. The touch of the English giver poisons the gift. They will never be satisfied until their commissions are signed by an Irish name. Nobody in the employ of the government is loyal. Every man hates and loathes England, and doesn’t hesitate to say so in public and in private, on all occasions, although he draws his rations from the British government. ”

“ One has the sensation of awe that solitude often produces, but it is disturbed by the chatter of the passengers. It is as dreary and desolate and lonesome a place as the world contains.
This is a comparatively new road. It was not built until 1838, but, like all the roads of Ireland, it is solid and perfect and made to last forever. The old road, and the principal line of communication between the counties of Cork and Kerry for centuries, ran along the slope of Hungry Mountain, so called because it is so devoid of vegetation that a goat would have to take his luncheon if he went up there. ”

“ The Right Honorable Gerald O’Reilly was Lord Mayor of Dublin when I was there in 1908, and he managed to look after his private business as grocer and liquor dealer at Towns End in connection with his official duties. He was elected to office by the nationalists and the labor element, who control the politics not only of Dublin but of all Ireland, and have elected his predecessors for many years. And they have been men of the people without exception. No aristocrat, no landlord, no member of the nobility could ever hope to become Lord Mayor of Dublin. ”

“ Additional grounds were purchased later by the Duke of Ormonde, when he was viceroy, and the great Chesterfield, when he held the office, did the landscape gardening, which illustrates his exquisite taste. The park is beautiful always, they say, but it could not be more beautiful than it is in May, when the hawthorn trees are white with blossom, the furze bushes are blazing with orange, and the rhododendrons, which grow to enormous size, are great banks of purple against the rich, deep foliage. ”