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Show I .jfwftecl 1st Treland I Ey WtinJ a. BLACK (Copyright, 1903, by John A. Black.) PART VII. Out boatman points but several rocks and islands isl-ands connected with the legend of the O'Donoghue ; such as his prison, where he is confined under the lake and '"fed on little bread and plinty of water"; and his library with his Bible which is a '"table of stone." On landing at Boss Castle our car met us and took us, wet and tired, back to the town a pretty mile and a half drive. Killarney is a picture done in nature's choicest choic-est colors, set in a splendid frame, hung in the best light; no one can copy it in words. After traveling ten miles by jaunting car, six by stiff-legged ponies, twelve by boat, in wind and rain, you may be sure we had impressions of Killarney Kil-larney all over us, some of which were quite lasting. last-ing. We finished the day and almost ourselves by taking the night train for Dublin. Beware of night trains in Ireland! They are refrigerator trains. We got some snatches of cold sleep which stiffened our limbs, and hardened our hearts ag-ainst the Great Southern Western. When we got to Kingsbridge station, Dublin, we were able to call a car and be taken to a hotel, where we got to' bed and thawed out till well on in the day. Beware of night trains in Ireland, I say! We are in Dublin, the famous capital of Ireland; Ire-land; our hotel is but a stonecast from the old castle which figures so conspicuously in Irish history. The castle is not an "imposing pile;" in fact, it is dis-appointing dis-appointing to one who has read its history. But it has history enouglrto make up for any shortcomings shortcom-ings in architecture; not all good history not good for Ireland, I mean but interesting history. Here is the seat'of government; here is where the grappling grap-pling iron grips Ireland and holds her alongside the foreign ship of state whose crew boarded Erin some centuries ago, and which has steadily refused to give up the prize. Over in College Green is another interesting building the old Parliament house. It is now occupied oc-cupied by the money-changers the Bank of Ireland. Ire-land. Here the Irish parliament lived and died fell into the Pitt in 1S00 A. D. "How shocking our old Parliament house looks," said one who helped to vote away the Parliament, to Curran; "yes," said Curran, "true, my lord: it is usual for murderers mur-derers to be afraid of ghosts." College Green is not green; it may have been green once, but there is little chance for grass to grow on it now with four busy streets pouring their throng of vehicles and pedestrians into it all daylong. day-long. The college has some fine buildings none remarkable, though; but the grounds are very fine and suprisingly extensive to be in the heart of a great city. There is a tendency in certain circles to refer to all things Irish with a sneer; can any good thing come out of Ireland ? As if Ireland were one of the Fiji group, and its people barbarians who became civilized only when they got out to America. I never realized so fully the pitiableness of this ignorant ig-norant prejudice which affects to sneer at "Irish," as I do standing here in Trinity college library, among these relics of Ireland's past, near and remote re-mote a past not to be ashamed of in any company. Come and see ! Here are ancient books and manuscripts, manu-scripts, and works or art which tell us of that period, pe-riod, stretching across nearly five centuries of Ireland's Ire-land's history from the sixth till well into the tenth centuries when Ireland was the university of northern Europe ; the time when crowds of students stu-dents came from Great Britain and the continent some of them of royal blood to be educated at Clonard, and Clonmacnois, and Armagh, and Bangor, Ban-gor, and Cashel, and Mungret, and Motiasterboice and the other gTeat monastic schools of Ireland; the time when Irish scholars overran Europe and commanded the attention and admiration of all lovers of learning; the time when the fame of Ireland's musicians was second only to that of her scholars, in foreign countries; the time when Irish missionaries were carrying the gospel into what is now England, Scotland, Wales, and to the continent; conti-nent; the time when Ireland was known far and wide as "the Island of Saints and Scholars." The Book of Kells, a matchless work of the pious art and learning of the seventh century, is the most interesting and valuable of the many books and manuscripts in the collection. It is a latin copy of the Four Gospels done by hand in vellum. The initial letters are done in five or six colors ; and so intricate and delicate are the designs, and so skiiful is the workmanship that competent judges say they could not be matched by the artists of our day. A leaf is turned over each day at in nY,l(,. when it is put on exhibition in its r!a. (;,.- .,, p o'clock it is removed to a place of safe kcrj,;. w On the sides of thn lung hall arc tw,. n.w f.t-busts f.t-busts of writers which remind us that ln Lni.l i,'. more modern times has contributed her hare ti the world's literature, and that, under nr-at disadvantages, dis-advantages, too. On every hand aro n-m inil.-r-, of the great names which make up Ireland's rr.ll of statesmen, orators and soldiers a roll Jng ch.hjl'Ii to girdle a much larger country with a han.l glory; but there is no rnd to the catalogu--! The harp of Brian Boru, which tnm- knowiili; ones would take from Brian and give to the O'X, i, is a curious looking specimen of the harp t'ainilv, and is at least 500 years old. "Xof the U-a-t int..,-. esting thing to inc is this patehed-up pan.. ,,f glass through which Goldsmith used to lo..k of his room in Trinity enllege. and on whi.-!i U scratched "O. Goldsmith," done by himself, s tin-,-say; and the only question as to the genuinene the autograph is suggested by the report that o. Goldsmith didn't wear diamonds in his college day-:, unless it were just after one of those times win -a v his long-suffering, but far-sighted rich uncle h,, tak?n some more stock in him and paid the ca-!i. It looks as Goldsmith's handwriting ought, to h,,,; that is, it has a scrawly, careless, good-naMirt d swagger about it; so I think it is genuine. On an old roll of the Irish parliament I ni,I the names of Henry Grattan. Henry Flood anl John Philpott Curran, written by their own han!; I shook hands with them across the century. Xearby hangs another document the leelarati..n of Independence of the United States on which V are some great names; so I must salute thee p-n-tlemen, too, for they are of the same school .-,f statesmen as the Irishmen lovers of liberty. f Of' fine churches, imposing public buillinj-. beautiful streets, squares and parks, and stanie? and monuments to great men, Dublin has her han and more, perhaps; besides, she has a noble river the Liifey spanned by some fine bridges, below which 'the ships that go down to the sea tie u; along the two walls in the very heart of the eity; and then she has Guinness' brewery, that fountain which sends it dark brown streams to the ends v( Ireland and beyant. A jaunting car took us through Phoenix park or part through, for 1700 acres are not so quickly gone through. The "Big Wind" jr., which swept oyer Ireland in February last, left its marks all ovpt the park; nearly 1,000 of the largest and finest trees were uprooted and their great trunks arc lying all about in the park. "They kape the wiM beasts beyant there," said our Jarvy, pointing to- ' ward the zoo, as we turned out into the North Circular Cir-cular road. We came in Sackvillo street, across the O'Connell bridge, and jaunted about the streets of the older part of the town south of the Liifey. The Dublin Jarvy never fails to point out to the stranger a little church on Thomas stmt St. Catherine's. In front of it one morning 100 yean ago, Ireland's cherished martyr Robert Emmet-was Emmet-was put to death with shameless despatch his trial having ended in the sentence of death the night. lefore. But the Irish have not been in such a hurry to forget Kobert Emmet. We had decided to leave Ireland for Scotland, but dear old Ireland seemed to be 'agin it." for when we wr-rc about to take a car for the North-Wall North-Wall bout binding, she poured down such a torrent tor-rent of rain as I never saw descend before. No car man would go out in it; the streets were deserted. de-serted. Then she worked herself into such a violent vio-lent passion of thunder and lightning that we werf shocked by her behavior. She stormed and raged and shrieked and shed tears in torrents. We s-od under a portico of the eld Parliament house till J-he first fit was over and she grew calmer. But when we mounted a car to go, she broke out again and the trip across O'Connell's bridge and down the North Wall was made in a pour-down of rain hard enough to drive these dwellers in Dublin to shel- J ter; and in a country where Pat says it rains "ivrr.v ' day savin' the thortieth of February," they don't ' go to cover for anything much short of a cloud- 1 burst. (Continued next week.) |
