The Charm of Ireland

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

Sarsfield went out the Dutch to rout,
And to take and break their cannon;
To Mass went he at half past three,
And at four he crossed the Shannon.

We had hoped to go to Athlone by way of Lough Derg, but we had already learned that that was not to be, for we had been told, back at the bridge, that the passenger service across the lake would not start until the sixteenth of June. And we were sorry, for, from the summit of this old rath, the lake, stretching away into the misty distance, looked very beautiful and inviting.

We made our way back to the village and stopped in at a nice little hotel just below the bridge, and had tea, served most appetizingly by a clean, bright-eyed maid; and then, while Betty sat down to rest, I sallied forth to see, if possible, the greatest curiosity of all about Killaloe—the original church or oratory of St. Molua, on an island near the left bank of the Shannon, about half a mile downstream.

Now to get back to St. Molua, one has to go a long way indeed, for he died three hundred years before Brian Boru was born. He was the first bishop of Killaloe, which is named after him, "cill" meaning church, and Killaloe being merely a contraction of Cill Molua, the church of Molua. The little oratory on the island, to which he retired for contemplation, after the manner of Irish saints, was built not later than the year 600.

You will understand, therefore, why I was so eager to see it, and I went into the bar to consult with the barmaid as to the best manner of getting to it. I had been told that it was possible to reach it from the left bank of the river without the aid of a boat, but the maid assured me this could be done only when the river was low, and was out of the question in the present stage of the water. So she went to the door and called to a passing boatman, and explained my wishes, and he at once volunteered to ferry me over to the island. His house, he said, was just opposite the island, and his boat was tied up at the landing there; so we walked down to it, along the bank of the canal which parallels the river.

A little way down the canal was a mill, and a boat was tied up in front of it unloading some grain, and when I looked into the boat, I saw that the grain was shelled Indian corn! It was not from America, however, but from Russia, and my companion told me that quite a demand for cornmeal was growing up in the neighbourhood, and that it was used mixed with flour. And then he listened, his eyes round with wonder, while I told him how corn grows. He had never seen it on the ear, and did not know the meaning of the word "cob," except as applied to a horse.

"And of course you have seen bananas growing!" he said, when I had finished, and I think he scarcely believed me when I tried to explain that a country warm enough for corn might still be too cold for bananas.

We finally reached his house—a little hovel built on a bluff overhanging the river—and went down some rude stone steps to the water's edge; and he unchained his boat, and whistled to his dog, and pushed off. It was quite an exciting paddle, for the current was very swift; but we got across to the island at last, after some hair-raising scrapings against rocks and over submerged reefs. We found the island a tangle of weeds and briars, but we broke our way through, and after some searching, found the tiny church, almost hidden by the bushes about it. They were so thick that I found it quite impossible to get a picture of the whole church, but by breaking down some of them, I finally managed to get a picture of the narrow inclined doorway, with my guide's dog posing on the threshold.

The oratory is built solidly of stone, with walls three feet thick, and a steep stone roof. Its inside measurements are ten feet by six! There is a single window, with a round head cut out of a block of stone, and in the wall on either side just below it is a shallow recess. The ceiling has fallen in, but one can still see the holes in the walls where the supporting beams rested. Above it, under the steep roof, was a croft, where perhaps the saint slept.

Consider, for a moment, what was going on in the world when this little church was built. It takes us back to the age of legend—the age of King Arthur and his knights—to that dim period when the Saxons were conquering England, and the Frankish kingdom was falling to pieces, and Mohammed was preaching his gospel in Arabia. A century and a half would elapse before Charlemagne was born, and two centuries before the first Norse boat, driving westward before the tempest, touched the New England coast!