Now this is no doubt a libel upon Ireland, for I suppose one can get electric torches there. At any rate, my advice is to get one somewhere—a good one—and take it along in your handbag. This advice is good for the continent as well as for Ireland, but it is especially good for the latter, and the reason is this:
In the old days, when English prodigals wasted their substance on castellated palaces, the Irish squire, being a wiser man, spent his money on good wine and good horses—or, when he had no money, ran light-heartedly into debt for them. As to his family mansion, he contented himself with adding a wing from time to time, as it might be needed, either because of the increasing number of his children, or the widening circle of his friends. The result was a singular house, often only one story high, never more than two, flung wide over a great deal of ground, and of a most irregular plan. Such a house had many advantages, for, as another writer has pointed out, "at one end of it the ladies could sleep undisturbed, no matter how joyous the men were at the other; there were no stairs to fall down; and the long narrow corridors were pleasant to those who found it hard to direct their devious steps."
But the time came when these hospitable Irishmen found themselves overwhelmed by debt, their houses were taken from them, and many of them, since they were too large for any private family, were converted into inns. The traveller in rural Ireland will encounter more than one of them, and will find those long, shadowy, zig-zag corridors eerie places after night, unless he has a torch to light his steps. The doors are not always fitted with locks, and if the window is kept open, an intruder has only to step over the sill. We never had any intruder; but had we had, I am sure one flash from the torch would have sent him flying.
CHAPTER XII
THE "GRAND TOUR"
There are many excursions which can be made over and around the Killarney lakes, but the most important one—the "grand tour," so to speak—starts at the town, proceeds by car to Kate Kearney's cottage, then by pony through the Gap of Dunloe, then by boat the full length of the lakes to Ross Castle, and back to town again by car. This round takes a day to accomplish, and gives one a very fair idea of Killarney. It is about all most of the people who come to Killarney ever see of it. In fact, some of them don't see that much—as will presently appear.
Now Killarney is to Ireland what the Trossachs are to Scotland and Niagara Falls to America—in other words, its most famous show-place; and so it has passed more or less under the control of that ubiquitous exploiter of show-places, Thomas Cook. Cook arranges all the excursions, Cook controls most of the vehicles, Cook's boats are the biggest and safest, and so, if you wish to see Killarney "in the least fatiguing manner," you must resign yourself to Cook. Let me say here that I admire Cook; there is no place where a traveller is served more courteously, more fairly, or more intelligently than in a Cook office. No one need be ashamed to make intelligent use of Cook. The reason of his disrepute is that he has come to be used so largely by self-complacent people whose idea of seeing Europe is to gallop from place to place in charge of a conductor. But that isn't Cook's fault.
Killarney is the one place in Ireland which every tourist wants to see, not because it is characteristically Irish, but because it has been very carefully exploited. In my own opinion, a trip to Holy Cross and Cashel, or to Mellifont and Monasterboice and the tombs of the kings, or to the congested districts of Connaught, is far better worth while. But the great bulk of tourist traffic follows the beaten path, and in Ireland the beaten path leads straight to Killarney.