The Charm of Ireland

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

Beyond the cloisters are the refectory and domestic offices and dormitories, all well-preserved, and repaying the most careful scrutiny. I don't know when I have been more ecstatically happy than when, after examining all this beauty, I sat myself down under an arch in the very midst of it, and smoked a pipe and gazed and gazed.

I tore myself away at last, and made my way across the meadow to the ruins of the castle, which I could see looming above the trees by the river. Right on the bank of the river it stands, and at one time there was a moat all around it which the river fed. One can see traces of the moat, even yet, with a fosse beyond, and there is enough left of the castle to show how great and strong this citadel of the Geraldines was. There is a high outer wall, all battlemented, pierced by a single gate; and then an inner ward, also with a single gate, flanked by heavy defending towers. Within this looms the ultimate place of refuge, the mighty donjon, forty feet square, with walls of tremendous strength, and flanking towers, and every device for defence, so that one wonders how it was ever taken.

One can still go up by the narrow stone stair, and from the top look down upon these walls within walls, and fancy oneself back in the Middle Ages, with their pageantries and heroisms and picturesque mummeries; and one can see, too, how hard and comfortless life was then, save for the few who held wealth and power in their mailed fists. "The good old times!" Not much! The sad, cruel, gruesome, selfish, treacherous old times, whose like, thank heaven, will never be seen again upon this earth!

The rain was pouring down in sheets as I left the castle, but I could not forbear going back again to the friary for a last look at it; and then I tramped happily back along the road to the gate; and the black-eyed girl was there to welcome me, and to say how sorry she was that the day was so bad. But I did not think it bad; I thought it beautiful, and said so; only I was afraid my photographs wouldn't be worth reproducing.

And then the girl asked me if I wouldn't come in and sit by the fire a bit, and we had a little gossip, of course about America. She had a married sister in New York, she said, and she hoped some day to join her. And then she told me that the cottage next door was where the famous Adare cigarettes were made—an industry started by the Earl, who grew the tobacco on his place.

I stopped in to see the factory, and found four girls rolling the cigarettes and a man blending the tobaccos. He told me that the Earl had planted twenty-five acres with tobacco, and that it did very well; but it was not used alone, as it was too dark, but blended with the lighter Maryland, brought from America. I bought a packet of the cigarettes in the interests of this narrative, but they did not seem to me in any way extraordinary.

I went on again and stopped in at the parish church, which was at one time a Trinitarian Friary, or White Abbey, founded seven hundred years ago. It was falling into ruins, when the Earl, who seems omnipotent in these parts, restored it and fitted it up as a church and turned it over to the Catholics. There is a big school attached to it now, and as I entered the grounds, a white-coifed nun who was sitting at a window looking over some papers, fled hastily. The church itself is chiefly remarkable for a very beautiful five-lighted window over the altar. Just outside is a handsome Celtic cross, surmounting the fountain where the villagers get their water.

There was a store farther down the street, and I stopped in to get some postcards. It was the most crowded store I ever saw, the ceiling hung with tinware, the shelves heaped with merchandise of every kind, and the floor so crowded with boxes and barrels that there was scarcely room to squeeze between them. I remarked to the proprietor that he seemed to carry a large stock, and he explained that he tried to have everything anybody would want, for it was foolish to let any money get away. While we were talking, a girl came in to sell some eggs. She had them in a basket, and the man took them out, but instead of counting them, he weighed them.

I went on back to the station, after that, through the driving rain, and I was very wet by the time I got there—wet on the outside, that is, but warm and dry and happy underneath. And at the station, I found three men, who were engaged in a heated argument as to whether a man weighed any more after he had eaten dinner than he did before. One of the men contended very earnestly that one could eat the heartiest of meals without gaining an ounce of weight if one only took the precaution of drinking a mug or two of beer or porter with the meal, since the drink lightened the brain and so neutralised the weight of the food in the stomach. He asserted that he had seen this proved more than once, and that he was willing to bet on it. He was also willing to bet that he could put twelve pennies into a brimming glass of stout without causing it to spill. As the village was a mile away, there was no place to get a glass of stout and try this interesting experiment.

And then one of the men, looking at my wet coat and dripping cap, asked me if I had been fishing.