CHAPTER V
ALMOST A DISASTER
My hand trembles as I recall Croagh Patrick, and our flight over it. This mountain is fully 2,500 feet high, and rises abruptly from the shores of Clew Bay. In many ways it was the most attractive mountain to me in all Ireland. There is a flat plain, with some ruins, on the top of it, and in former times it was a place of great sanctity.
Saint Patrick, after whom the mountain is named, made several pilgrimages to its summit, and here St. Patrick exercised magic power for Ireland’s welfare. Here is the record in the historian’s own words:
“St. Patrick brought together here all the demons, toads, serpents, and other venomous creatures in Ireland and imprisoned them in a deep ravine on the sea front of the mountain, known as Lugnademon (the pit of the demons) as fast as they came in answer to his summons, and kept them safely there until he was ready to destroy them. Then, standing on the summit of the Croagh, St. Patrick, with a bell in hand, cursed them and expelled them from Ireland for ever. And every time he rang the bell thousands of toads, adders, snakes, reptiles and other noisome things went down, tumbling neck and heels after each other, and were swallowed up for ever in the sea.”
As we neared Croagh Patrick I bravely asked Mike to sail over its flat top, and see this sacred spot. Mike was ready to do it in a minute. He pulled the levers and we began to ascend, while still over two miles distant from the mountain. Higher and higher we went when we reached an altitude of 2,000 feet, I could feel my heart begin to thump.
Timing himself with an accuracy, which astonished me, Mike sailed over the top of Croagh Patrick about 30 feet above the flat plain. He circled around once and we passed close beside the ruin of the ancient chapel. There is also a large Celtic Cross standing upright on the summit.
I was so glad to have old Mother Earth so near once more, that I suggested that we land. Mike was going to bring the aeroplane down when he remembered that there was no way to rig up a starting rail on the top of Croagh Patrick, and so we kept on in our flight. A minute afterwards I was sorry we did not alight, anyhow.
After his second circle around the flat plain, which is half a mile square, Mike started east, and in a couple of minutes the earth was 2,500 feet below us. The suddenness of the appearance of this vast abyss between us and land seemed even to unnerve Mike for a moment. I almost collapsed.