The Charm of Ireland

asked with rain, but the Golden Vale had emerged from its baptism more lush, more green, more dazzling than ever. We left it behind, at last, plunged

cturesque Galtees, the highest mountains in the south of Ireland, fiss

minute. The instant the train stopped, the mob snatched open the doors and swept into it like a tidal wave. When the riot subsided a bit, we found that four men and two girls were crowded in with us, and the corridor outside was jammed with peop

ut putting something on the horses; it was also assumed that every normal man and woman would make almost any sacrifice to get to a meeting; and there was a lively discussion as to possible ways and means of attending another meeting which was to be held somewhere in the neig

and even managed to collect a few pennies, found unexpectedly in odd pockets. Then one of the men in our compartment told a story; I have forg

d when we g

r the most part of dirty lanes between ugly houses. In Dublin, the principal street and bridge are dedicated to O'Connell; in Cork both bridge and street

come up from Queenstown to celebrate. Many of them had girls on their arms, and those who had not were evidently hoping to have, and the impression one got was that Cork suffers a good deal f

e as a noun, an adjective, and a verb; and the old tower of which the stone is a part has been pictured so often that its appearance is probably better known than that of any other ruin in Europe. Blarney is about five miles from Cork, and the easiest way of getting there is by the light railway, which runs

NEY

famous song in praise of them. There were grottoes and beds of flowers, and terraces and rustic bowers there then, and st

tear when the c

n his hand, to sw

les through the grounds, and its banks are covered with daisies and buttercups, and guarded by giant beeche

ter. Cormac McCarthy built it in the fifteenth century as a defence against the English, and it was held by the Irish until Cromwell's army besieged and captured it. Around the top of the tower is a series of machicolations, or openings between supp

e at the last ford, he thought for a moment he would be swept away, so swift and deep was the current. But his horse managed to keep its feet, and just as it was scrambling out upon the farther

bade him, when he got home, go out upon the battlement and kiss a certain stone, whose location she described to him. Thereupon she vanished, and so McCarthy knew it was a witch he had resc

Carthy put off the English, when they called upon him to surrender his castle. Certain it is that it was

ne there, that

misses to g

lamber to a l

member of

ter he'll sur

outer, to b

inder him, or t

lgrim from the

of pilgrims have thronged

t every level giving access to the great, square interior. The floors have all fallen in and there is only the blue sky for roof, but the graceful old fireplaces still remain and some traces of ornamentation, an

for, on top of the battlement above it, a row of tall iron spikes has been set, and the stone itself is tied into the wall by iron braces, for one of Cro

at open space is a sheer drop of a hundred and twenty feet to the ground below. When one looks down through it, all that one can see are the waving tree-tops far, far beneath. There is just one way to acco

sm and then at each other; and then we went away and s

anxious to earn sixpence by assisting at the rite, as there had bee

in-I'm not going away from here until I've kissed tha

that abyss. Anyway, I won't take the responsibility of holding you by the h

and then shied away from it, and pretended to think of something else. Presently we heard voices on the stair, and a man and two women emerged on the parapet. We wa

man, who was an Englishman. "I should

o go away without kissi

e before, and I fought that all out then. It's really

ould be folly to say so to an Englishman. So the conversation dropped, and presently he a

Blarney stone, and we hastened to point it out to them, and explained the process of kissing it. There were postcards illustrating th

e trying to screw up cour

d at the stone, and

at it; and then they went away, and Betty and I, both rather pale around the gills, continued to talk of s

the stone was, and we showed him, and he looked at it, and then he

" he said. "

ca," said Betty, "and we simply ca

d, madam," said the man, "but I wouldn't thi

take people by the ankles and hold them upside down outside the battlement. I suppose they dropped somebody over, for those s

took another pee

" he said.

began to talk; and I fancied I could see in his

He was evidently native to the neighbourhood,

, many a tim

again, so that we can s

the New Zealander took one leg and I took the other. Then the boy reached his hands above his

h me down

an awful distance, though I knew we couldn't drop him becaus

he called.

and in an instant

is to it," he said

the New Zealander,

for a minute or two, my

and coat off, and was spreading her ra

oing to do?" I

e raincoat with he

wo, and hold me

she wanted to; so I knelt on one side of her and the New Zealander knelt on the other, and we each gr

me down,"

with triumph. It took her some minutes to get her hair fixed, for most of the ha

" she demanded, in much th

t kissing it? Why, I'd never hear the last of it! Get hold of my legs," and I s

ested, "I don't know whether

that there was nothing in my trouser

they said they would; so, with one man and four women holding on to my legs, I let myself over backwards. One doesn't realise how much two feet is

the girls who had been watching m

wn, and I saw the smooth, wo

s it?"

n a moment was right side up again; an

ace grim and set, began to take t

l hold me," he sai

him, and

ggling, and as there was nothing more to do on top of that tower, w

Paris without seeing the Louvre, or to the Louvre without seeing the Winged Victory and the Venus of Milo. Really, there isn't any danger, if you have two people of average strength holding you; and there isn't even any very great sense of danger, since your back is to the abyss and you can't s

r Marsh's company, then touring Ireland in classical repertoire, and would open in Cork in "The Three Musketeers" the following evening. I had never heard of Alexander Marsh, but they both pronounced his name with such awe and

the Catholics over here would get angry in a minute if we made a fool of a Cardinal, even on the stage. So we have to call him Roquefort, and leave out the Cardinal altogether, which, of course, spoils the whole poi

oo; so we promised

ul accent so common on the English stage; and he had been to New York once, and for some reason had fared pretty badly there; but he hoped to get to Ameri

hich runs along under the cliff, and walked on to Blarney Lake, a pretty bit of water, with more than its share of traditions: for, at a certain season of the year, a herd of white cows rises from its bosom and feeds along its banks, and it is the home of a red trout which will not rise to the fly

ne-chatters hopping about our feet, picking up the crumbs; and then we loitered about the quaint little village, and visited the ch

sed the Bl