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Show j Ewbeel in Ireland By John B. Black. (Copyright, 3903, by John A. Black.) 'The Statue" which is Father Matthew's Mat-thew's statue in Patrick street near the bridge seen?s to be the center of Cork, for almost all distances and directions di-rections are reckoned from it. "It is the second street past the statue, sir:" or "keep on till you meet the statue, sir," are samples of the directions given you by the ever-obliging Corkonian. ' Thus the name they wish to honor and perpetuate gets into the every day life of the people, which is worth consideration consider-ation when we are erecting statues to our great men. The name Cork, to me, whose ancestors an-cestors came from the other end of the house, Donegal, once stood for all that unfortunately divided the house against 1 itself. When I was a boy the Donegal I group, which used to jrather at ray father's fireside, could talk calmly of the "ould country" till they came to Cork, which always roiled the con-xersa'tlon. con-xersa'tlon. And Corkonian was a brand 1 which, put upon a man. made him the object of suspicion by the older people and of curiosity mingled with fear , among the children. Of course, I had discovered that the Donegal men saw Cork and the Corkonian thrcugh a mist of prejudice of race and religion, which distorted their vision; but the memory I f my boyhood conceptions of Cork was j th? background against which 1 saw the real Cork. For one. who had once .stood gazing with mingled curiosity and fear on a lone son of Cork in America, Amer-ica, to stand in Cork itself was no common com-mon experience, I assure you. Cork should be very humble, for her name came from "the earth beneath" which was once very swampy, corcach a marsh. But the old city has put 01 1 of sight all sigi.s of her humble oiiuin. and rears her head as proudly as if she stood on a rock. Much of the I "pl-'-Hant waters of the river L,eo" !roi s down to Cork harbor with the tide twipc a day, leaving the famous river , in a pitiable plight as she creeps along ihrough the city between high stone Willis, befouled by sewage which the soulless eorpor.it ion. taking advantage of her humiliation, pours out on her I bo.-om. !s St. Finn iijrr came to these parts in th-.- seventh remury and meeting with favor of ihe local chief, he asked 1 for lend on which to build a church jj "to pray to Cod for himself and all the IP' eple" which was granted by the ehief and St. Finn Barr built his church ;;n! founded a school, whic h became so in. tabu- that many students eame from I all parts to attend it: and the hcrmit- as's built for the students to live in ! . were the beginnings of thj city of Cork. The modern St. Fnm Karr's I cail;e.ir.-;l viands 011 the site of this 1 fii-M huroh. J SL Anne's. thkh is Shandon church, Jw.-is mad famous, by Father Piout's ' Hells of Shandon That sound s-o grand on The pi en sat waters Of the river Lee." The priest-poet lies buried in Shan-?'"i Shan-?'"i churchyard, where now his beloved hoV.s fling round his tomb "Their magic spells." j Nothing: less than the devotion of a poet could have saved Shandon churcn from obscurity, for the building itself would not attract attention, except, perhaps, per-haps, by its oddities. Shandon proves that you can't tell by looking at a" steeple what kind of bells are in it. for Siinndon boils hang in as unartistic a tower as it was ever the lot of bells to "Toll sublime in." The tower is square: two sides are of dark and two of light stone. The great, Kllded fish which occupies the place of weather-vane on the steepls might be appropriate to a church named after St. Peter, who was a fisherman, but why St. Anne is made to hold aloft over ' vrk this market sign, 1 am unable to j S'lf'ss. This Shandon district is the poorest ' part of Cork, and I suppose is the oldest J part of the present city. The streets aro narrow and irregular; and running off the wider streets are many allevs, which seem to be densely populated, but are too narrow for a horse and cart to enter. All about are dirty, ragged, bawling evidence that race suicide is not one of the sins of these Shandon parish people. It was almost impossible impos-sible to get a snap shot without a flock of curious children, and an old woman or two in the foreground. The only noticeable no-ticeable buildings in this district, aside from the churches, are the butter market mar-ket and an odd-looking, round building called "The Crane." whose historv or use I was unable to get, only that once it was used for storing butter. The old women who deal in second hand garments do not allow store rent to eat up their small profits, for thy spread their stock out on the pavement pave-ment and do business without the aid of show windows or other helps except ex-cept the natural gift of a glib tongue which is quite sufficient in Ireland f Most of their stock seemed to have 1 passed the second hand stage and to be along well toward-? the fifth or sixth ; nani- j 1' The dwellers about here cannot blame the coffin-maker if death overtake over-take them unawares, for he warns them daily by building his gruesome boxes in a shop with the whole front open on the street. He was busy varnishing varn-ishing a hungry-looking coffin of pine as we passed by his place; so we came back by the next street, for it is just as well to be cheerful while you may be by turning a corner or two. In the evening we went out to the Cork exposition and, after paying sixpence six-pence admission and a penny for a seat in the boat, we sailed down along the Mardyke walk into the exposition on a swift stream with banks and bottom of pine plank. The exposition, if measured meas-ured by our American standard, is on a small scale; but no fair-minded visitor vis-itor would make such a comparison. It is a very praiseworthy enterprise and one which will benefit not only Cork, but all Ireland, for the people cannot behold these expositions of the world's progress and not catch some of the spirit of progress themselves. One of the most curious things I saw at the exposition was a Manchester man whom I fell in with and whom it would have been easy for an Irishman to fall out with. Wth a pipeful of royal mixture mix-ture he smoked out a most fantastic brood of statements about Ireland and the Irish, which prejudice brooding an ignorance had hatched out in his cranial cra-nial cavity. He said that all of Ireland's Ire-land's ills were due to the inborn shift-lessness shift-lessness of the Irish, and that promoting promot-ing expositions and other educative enterprises en-terprises in Ireland was casting pearls before swine. This fellow's opinion is worth notice here only because he represents rep-resents a class not unknown in America, Amer-ica, who "shut their eyes and open their mouths" to take their opinions on the Irish question. The Irish question cannot be disposed of by adjudging the Irish people incompetent, for this judgment judg-ment will not stand when appeal is taken to the story of the Irish in America and in Australia, and, indeed, wherever they have got out from under the weight of landlordism and its supporting sup-porting laws and institutions. You have, no doubt, gone into a room or a house some time and been conscious con-scious that some change had been made since your last visit; something had been disturbed, but you could not point it out. I have had this experience in Ireland. I had been conscious ever since I got ashore that something had j been disturbed in Ireland and today 1 1 discovered what it is the constabulary wear caps and look like men now. Two years ago the majesty of the law was crowned with a little pail-like thing, on the side of its head, the baii under its chin. His majesty's troops still wear the pail. Darwin may have been mistaken mis-taken in his doctrine that man came from a monkey, but he had good grounds for suspicion in h country where he saw so many British soldiers wearing monkey clothes and headgear. We stopped on Patrick street to pick out a likely-looking jarvey and car, but before we could make any choice, the I nearest one to us had us up on his j machine and was hurrying along toward Blarney Castle with his prey. He was not as good a guide as most jarvies are, for he was dull of hearing; but nature had mercifully compensated him for the loss of his hearing by giving him a good eye for the glint of the silver. An Irish jaunting car has no equal as a means of doing what its ndme suggests jaunting about. It has a lively, swinging -movement which imparts im-parts a vivacity to those who ride on it, unless they be past hope. A ride in a jaunting car will cure the blues. Everybody laughs and grows merry on an outside car or nearly everybody, for there are always some who can resist any temptation to be happy. Bianconi, J who introduced the jaunting car in Ire- I land, who not an Irishman, but he had 1 a wonderful insight into the Irish nature na-ture and made a vehicle to match it exactly in sprightliness. which, of course, insured the success of the invention. in-vention. An Irishman is never so much an Irishman as when he gets his back to the "Well," his face to the green fields and lets his troubles go to the winds as he goes sideling along Ireland's Ire-land's fine roads on an outside car. You can go to Blarney Castle by tram car, which may be well enough for those who go often, but for one who is making his first pilgrimage to this court of eloquence, the only proper way is to go by Jaunting car, especially if one expects to be made a knight of Blarney, for I doubt if the royal rock of Blarney will bestow favors upon those who are so unmindful of the proprieties of approach to so august a oourt as to come out on a tram ca j The ride to Blarney takes one through a bit of charming country. The road is picturesque: it runs along the valley, under the hills, through the wooded spots, between the moss-covered walls, shaded by great overhanging trees and' tangled vines; then it winds about among green fields, past groups of thatched cottages and down into the valley again to the village of Blarney a small village burdened by a notable name which it cannot support. Here we leave our car and walk through the grounds of the castle. Some fine views of the castle towering above the trees from points along the footpath are very impressive and do full Justice to Blarney. Blar-ney. Blarney Castle needs no description, for its great square tower rising up out of the grove about it. is familiar to almost al-most everyone. Just below the castle we were met by a verysandy colored native, who lured us away Under the rock, into a dark, damp, fearsome cave, where he showed us secret passages and stairs, dungeons and little round cells where he said prisoners had been -walled in till they died. We. were not altogether alto-gether at ease in this unearthly place; nor were we altogether sure that this' rusty-looking fellow was not an Irish Rip aVn Winkle who had just pried himself out of one of thesedark dungeons, dun-geons, till we dropped a little coin in x-is rusty hand, which closed on it without any signs of stiffness.; so we concluded that he belonged to the present pres-ent age. (Continued next week.) |