The Charm of Ireland

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

This part of Limerick is on the island where the town started; the part just beyond the bridge which leads to the mainland is called Irish Town, and it, too, was once included in the city walls, a long stretch of which is still standing back of the ancient citadel. Here too, especially along the quay, are handsome houses, long since fallen from their high estate, and now the homes of the poorest of the poor, a family in every room. It is something of a shock to see these ragged and distressed people climbing the beautiful stairways, or sitting in the handsome doorways or leaning out of the carved windows, very much at home in the place which was once the abode of wealth and fashion, while the noisy play of dirty and neglected children echoes through the rooms which once rang with gentle laughter and impassioned toast.

Newtown-Pery, the newer part of the town, built on land reclaimed from the river by the Pery family, the Earls of Limerick, who still own it, contrasts strongly with the older part, for its streets are wide and straight and run regularly at right angles, and it is a bustling place, but quite without interest to the stranger. The houses are almost uniformly four stories high, and are built of a peculiar dark-brown brick, which makes them look much older than they really are. And down along the water-front are nearly a mile of quays, with floating docks and heavy cranes, and towering warehouses looking down upon them.

Time was when Limerick fondly hoped to become the greatest port in Ireland. She had every advantage—a noble situation on the broad estuary of the Shannon, up which ships from America could sail direct to her wharves—but in spite of great expenditures to improve her harbour facilities, not only did no new trade come, but such as she already had withered and withered, until to-day her tall warehouses are empty, her quays almost deserted, and in the broad expanse of the Shannon there are few boats except excursion steamers and pleasure yachts.

The cause of this decay? Irishmen assert that there is only one cause—unjust and discriminating laws passed by England to protect her own trade by destroying Irish industry. No doubt this is true; but these laws have been repealed for many years, and there is little evidence of the healthy revival of these industries anywhere in Ireland. Such revival as there is has been carefully fostered by various government agencies; there has been no great spontaneous revival, and perhaps there never will be. But it is a melancholy sight—the empty, decaying mills, the idle factories, the deserted warehouses, the ruined dwellings, which the traveller sees all up and down the land.

I went out for another stroll about the town, after tea, for I wanted to see the new Catholic cathedral, whose tall spire dominates the landscape for many miles around. And as I went, I could not but notice the impress the English have left on the names of the streets. The principal street, as I have said already, is George Street; then there is Cecil Street, and William Street, and Nelson Street, and Catherine Street, and George and Charlotte Quays opposite each other. There is one, however, named after a local celebrity whom all Irishmen should delight to honour—Gerald Griffin, an authentic poet, whose "Eileen Aroon" is one of the tenderest and most musical of lyrics.

Gerald Griffin Street is one of the most important in Limerick, and it is by it that one gains the cathedral, an impressive building, especially as to its interior, dimly lighted through high, narrow lancet windows. And here again one admires not so much the church itself, as the indomitable spirit which could undertake the task of building such an edifice in want-stricken Ireland.

The Sarsfield monument is in the cathedral square, a rampageous figure, charging with drawn sword off the top of a shaft of stone—perhaps the most ridiculous tribute to a great soldier and patriot to be seen anywhere on this earth. I, at least, have never seen any to match it, unless it be that imperturbable dandy, supposed to represent Andrew Jackson, who calmly doffs his chapeau from the back of a rearing horse in front of our own White House!

I walked on, after that, down toward the quays, along little lanes of thatched houses, and then back into the region of the old mansions, with their chattering women and sprawling children; and then, suddenly, I became aware of the girls.

Limerick, like Cork, is supposed to be famous for the beauty of its women, and the younger generation was out in force, that Sunday evening, rigged up in its best clothes, evidently ready for any harmless adventure. There were some nice-looking girls among them, no doubt of that, with bright eyes and red lips and glowing cheeks, and the advent of a stranger in their midst filled them with the liveliest interest, which they were at no pains to dissemble. I know nothing about the psychology of Irish girls, for I was not in a position to investigate or experiment; but while they are shy, at first, I should judge that most of them are not altogether averse to mild flirtation. The glance of their eye is not, perhaps, as fatal as Kate Kearney's, but it is very taking.

I wish I could say as much for the boys; but if there were any witty, invincible Rory O'Mores left in Ireland, I didn't see them. The Irish young man seems very different indeed from the light-hearted, audacious, philandering scapegrace so dear to Lover and Lever and scores of lesser poets, and once so familiar upon the stage. They are not forever breaking into song, they do not brim with sentiment, they are not, so far as I could judge, full of heroic emotions and high ambitions. In fact, they are quite the opposite of all that—matter-of-fact, humdrum, rather stupid.