We went down to Monkstown by rail, that afternoon, to see Queenstown harbour. The line runs close to the river, passing Passage, whose charms have been celebrated by Father Prout, and finally reaching Monkstown, on the heights above which stands the famous, four-square castle which cost its owner only fourpence. The story goes that, in 1636, John Archdeckan marched away to the war in Flanders, and his wife determined to surprise him, on his return, by presenting him with a stately castle. So she gathered a great number of builders together and gave them the job on the condition that they would buy all their food and drink and clothing from her. When the castle was done, she balanced her accounts and found that she had expended fourpence more than she had received.
At Monkstown, we took a boat and ferried across the harbour, past many grey men-of-war which lay at anchor there. Very beautiful it is, with the high, green-clad hills pressing about it on all sides, and shrouding the entrance so completely that one might fancy oneself in a landlocked lake. Queenstown is built on the side of one of these hills, and is dominated by the great, white cathedral, which has been building for fifty years, and is not yet finished.
It is a curious coincidence that the two ports of Ireland by which most visitors enter and leave it should be named after two people whom the Irish have little reason to love. In 1821, when George IV embarked at the port of Dunleary, just below Dublin, he "graciously gave permission" that its name might be changed to Kingstown in honour of the event. In 1849, Queen Victoria paid one of her very few visits to Ireland, and sailed into the Cove of Cork. As she herself wrote, "To give the people the satisfaction of calling the place Queenstown, in honour of its being the first spot on which I set foot on Irish ground, I stepped on shore amidst the roar of cannon and the enthusiastic shouts of the people." Forty years later, when the Irish had come to realise that the Queen had no interest in them, they had the dignity and good sense to put aside the servility to which they have sometimes been too prone, and to refuse to take part in the celebration of her Jubilee. But Queenstown is still Queenstown.
The town consists of a single long street of public houses and emigrant hotels and steamship offices facing the water, and some steep lanes running back up over the hill, and the day we were there, it was crowded with emigrants, Swedes and Norwegians mostly, who had been brought ashore from the stranded Haverford, and who spent their time wandering aimlessly up and down, trying to find out what was going to happen to them. There were many sailors and marines knocking about the grog-shops, as well as the crowd of navvies and longshoremen always to be found lounging about a water-front. This water-front is one great landing-stage, and it is here that perhaps a million Irish men and women have stepped forever off of Irish soil.
We climbed up the hill presently to the cathedral, which owes not a little of its impressiveness to its superb site. Its exterior is handsome and imposing—good Gothic, though perhaps a trifle too florid for the purest taste; but the effect of the interior is ruined by the absurd columns of the nave, made of dark marble, and so slender that the heavy structure of white stone above them seems to be hanging in the air.
We had hoped to go by rail to Youghal and take steamer up the Blackwater to Cappoquin, and from there drive over to the Trappist monastery at Mt. Melleray; but we found that the steamer did not start until the fifteenth of June, so most regretfully that excursion had to be abandoned. Those who have made it tell me it is a very beautiful one. Cloyne is also perhaps worth visiting; but we were tired of Cork and hungering for Killarney, and so decided to turn our faces westward next day.