Eira

“ Till the ruin of the Norse kingdom in the east of Erin, in the great battle of Clontarf (1114) , the Norsemen were brought much in contact with the Irish, and by this means adopted Irish names, such as Nial and Cormac, and Irish superstitions as well. The name they gave to the Isle of the Blessed, in the western seas, was either Great Ireland, because there the Erse tongue was spoken,—it being colony of the souls of the Kelts,—or Hvitramannaland, because there the inhabitants were robed in white. ”

“ 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. ”

“ GLENGARRIFF AND BANTRY BAY TWO of the most famous men in English literature have passed unstinted praise on the beauty and charm of the southern Irish coast.
If one looks at a map of the southwest of Ireland, it will be seen that its whole coast-line is broken into serrations, making harbours, islands, bays, and coves. If he should go to the coast itself, he will have revealed to him a wondrous kaleidoscope,—alternate scenes of sweet, pathetic gentleness, and stern and rugged grandeur, all full of engrossing charm. ”

“ Yellow is not an Irish colour, nor is white. Ireland is indeed green Erin, the Emerald Isle. Never was name more truly given.
One could consider Ireland as a prodigious grass plot of some twenty million acres, constantly watered by rain. Water is everywhere: in the clouds [49] that the winds of the Atlantic drive over her, and that the highlands of Scotland and Norway stop in their course; on the soil, where all hollows, great or small, become lakes; under the ground even, where the roots of vegetables, saturated and swollen like sponges, slowly change into peat. ”

“ After those days Danes and Irish and English plundered in their turn, but the stillness of the rock and the loneliness of the sea closed in again on the islands, while on the mainland rebellion and conquest alternated in a various agony, and the civilisation thrust on Ireland was a coat of many colours, dipped in blood. These Aras of the Sea rest in their primitive calm, nurturing a strong, leisurely people, with the patience and hardiness of the rock in their blood ”

“ 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. ”

“ The progress of pastoral countries, political and general, as they have little city life, is slow. With beauty Ireland is well endowed. The interior is flat, with large peat bogs and brimming rivers. But the coast is mountainous and romantic. The western coast especially, where the Atlantic rolls into deep inlets, has a pensive charm which, when troubles end and settled peace reigns, may attract the villa as they do the wanderer now. ”

“ Irishmen there are, not a few, in New Zealand, good colonists, and doing well, but it is another matter to find yourself in Ireland. Interesting as Ireland is in its contrast to England, its pastures everywhere, its wild western scenery, and spots of beauty like Killarney, its relics of the past, ruins of abbeys and monasteries which covered the land in the old times of the Celtic Church, it is the general character of the people that impressed me most. ”

“ Ireland must be known to her Ballad Historians, not by flat, but by shaded maps, and topographical and scenic descriptions; not by maps of to-day only, but by maps (such as Ortelius and the maps in the State Papers) of Ireland in time past; and, finally, it must be known by the eye. A man who has not raced on our hills, panted on our mountains, waded our rivers in drought and flood, pierced our passes, skirted our coast, noted our old towns, and learned the shape and colour of ground and tree and sky, is not master of all a Balladist's art. ”

“ Before I conclude my letter on Ireland, I must add a few words about the beautiful green aspect of the country which has given it the name of "the Emerald Isle." As one is hurried on through the open county by the train, his eye is refreshed by the deep-green fields and plains which surround him on every side—by the clusters of deep-green trees and woods and thick vegetation such as one would seek for in vain in England. ”

“ Just in front of the headland can be seen the two peaks of the mountain of Rano Raraku, from which the statues were hewn and which is the most interesting place in the island; while on a clear day there can be obtained a glimpse of the northern coast and the sea beyond.
Such is Easter Island. It bears no resemblance to the ideal lotus-eating lands of the Pacific; rather, with its bleak grass-grown surface, its wild rocks and restless ocean, it recalls some of the Scilly Isles or the coast of Cornwall. It is not a beautiful country nor even a striking one, but it has a fascination of its own. ”

“ Those who have not been on the sea at the base of Slieve League cannot form a true idea of its awful grandeur. Its summit is almost as sharp as a knife blade; and he who could look from the jagged rocks that form its cone down on to the seething ocean under him without feeling giddy should have a steady head and strong nerves. Those who go from these islands to Norway in search of the sublime should first see this king Irish cliff-mountains, and know how grand and beautiful are the sights that may be seen at home. ”

“ For the wonder of Ireland is, that it is the West Pole of things; there is no place else nearer the Unseen; its next-door neighbor-land westward is this Great Plain, whither sail the Happy Dead in their night-dark coracles,—to return, of course, in due season; and all the peoplings of Ireland were from this Great Plain. So you see why the Crest-Wave, passing from dying Europe, "went west" by way of Ireland. ”

“ Young Eyre conceived the practicability of an overland route, and proceeded to prove it to a demonstration. In the first of these journeys he took 1,000 sheep and 600 head of cattle from the Monaro district, in New South Wales, to Adelaide, in South Australia, by way of the Murray River, and reaped a handsome pecuniary reward in the sale of the stock. Smaller men followed in the wake of this born adventurer, making overlanding the most paying game in Australia, till a glut was produced in the southern markets. ”

“ George’s Channel is a succession of beautiful villas and mansions and farms, each surrounded by lawns and groves and, in some cases, primeval forests. It is the “Garden of Ireland” and there is no sign of poverty or oppression or unhappiness visible to the human eye. There is no lovelier land on earth. “The Fair Hills of Holy Ireland” are unsurpassed in gentle natural beauty, and about forty miles south of Dublin, in the Wicklow hills, is a little patch of Switzerland surrounded by mountains that rise as high as three thousand feet. ”

“ GIANT’S CAUSEWAY, IRELAND. A singular mass of basaltic columns, situated on the coast of Antrim, Ireland, has obtained this name from the legend that it was the commencement of a road planned by the giants of old to project across the channel from Ireland to Scotland. And, indeed, it looks almost like a deliberate work of mightier men than we rather than a frolic of nature. It resembles an immense pier jutting out into the sea from the base of a stratified cliff about four hundred feet high, to the length of about seven hundred feet. ”

“ I have already spoken of the wonders of the River Shannon, which rises in a bubbling cauldron away above Lough Allen, and flows down through ten counties to the sea; widening into lakes twenty miles long, or draining vast stretches of impassable bog; navigable for more than two hundred miles; and, finally, the great barrier between eastern Ireland, which the Danes and English over-ran and conquered, and western Ireland, which has never ceased to be Irish, and where the old Gaelic is still the language of the people. ”

“ There is surely no country in the world where hearts so thinly covered beat so warmly as in the Emerald Isle. Wherever one travels,—over the bare mountains of Donegal and the rocks and cliffs of the northern coast, or among the blue lakes and green fields of the South,—he will always find a merry greeting and a hearty Irish welcome. ”

“ The “Kongespeil” (or “Mirror of Kings”) , which was compiled in Norway about the year 1200, says that “Ireland is almost the best of the lands we are acquainted with, although no vines grow there.” The Scandinavian Vikings and emigrants, who often contented themselves with such poor countries as Greenland and the islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, must therefore have especially turned their attention to “the Emerald Isle,” particularly as it bordered very closely upon their colonies in England and Scotland. ”

“ They led us to the top of the hill, where we could stand beside the spot once occupied by the coronation stone and admire all Ireland, spread out like a cyclorama around us. It is one of the most beautiful landscapes in the universe. There are no mountains, except in the far distance; there are no rocks or other ungainly objects in view, but as serene and peaceful and fertile a tract of territory as can be found upon God’s footstool. Ireland is the greenest country that ever was. The turf and the foliage have a brighter color and a richer luster than those of any other country. ”

“ The Irish rivers are many, and, in the main, beautiful streams. The Shannon 10is the greatest river in the realm of Great Britain and Ireland, while the Suir, the Barrow, the Nore, the Slaney, the Corrib, the Erne, the Foyle, the Boyne, and the Liffey are also considerable rivers and possess enough waterpower, were it scientifically utilized, to turn the wheels of the world’s machinery. The Munster Blackwater, celebrated, like its sister river, the Suir, in the charming poetry of Edmund Spenser, is called, because of its peculiar loveliness, “the Irish Rhine.” ”

“ A thousand Fields and her own fields small, small! “What a fine and wide place is Eirinn,” said she, “I am Mor, but not great after all.” Then a herdsman came, and he told her That her sons had stolen away: They had left the calves in the hollow, With the goose-flock they would not stay: They had seen three ships on the sea And nothing would do them but go: Mor wept and wept when she heard it, And her tears made runnels below. ”

“ In the controversy arising out of the Schleswig-Holstein Question, which culminated in the war of Austria and Prussia against Denmark in 1864, the Eider gave its name to the “Eider Danes,” the intransigeant Danish party which maintained that Schleswig (Sønderjylland, South Jutland) was by nature and historical tradition an integral part of Denmark. The Eider Canal (Eider-Kanal) , which was constructed between 1777 and 1784, leaves the Eider at the point where the river turns to the west and enters the Bay of Kiel at Holtenau. ”

“ EYRE'S ADVENTUROUS JOURNEY ALONG THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN BIGHT.
Edward John Eyre, the son of a Yorkshire clergyman, was born in the year 1815. A youthful passion for the heroic led him to chose the military profession; but, having failed to obtain a commission, he turned his attention to the colonies, and came to Sydney in 1833, with the slender capital of £400. Part of this sum was spent in obtaining colonial experience, in which he graduated so high as to become the leader in a new Australian enterprise. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ireland became a commercial centre, a meeting place of the peoples. There came Grett with the Greek hat to buy captives for the Iceland market. A host of Saxons and Britons were brought over by Olaf and Ivar in 871. Almost every king of Norway sailed his fleet into Irish harbours, to drive off the rival Danish merchants, to broaden his traffic, to spy out some new store of gold, to load up with corn, to sweep the cattle down to the seashore for the “strand-hewing” that was to provision his crews [79] with meat, fresh and salt, for their ocean course. ”

“ The purple of the plain is (on) each neck, the colour of the eyes is (colour of) eggs of blackbird; though pleasant to the sight are the plains of Fal (Ireland) , they are a wilderness (7) for a man who has known the Great Plain.
Though intoxicating to ye the ale of the island of Fal, the ale of the Great Country is more intoxicating a wonder of a land is the land I speak of, a young man there goes not before an old man.
Stream smooth and sweet flow through the land, there is choice of mead and wine; men handsome (?) without blemish, conception without sin, without crime. ”