Near one of the fishing villages which abound on the Clare coast, a narrow valley runs back from the sea into the mountains, opening between two precipices that, ages ago, were rent asunder by the forces of nature. On entering the valley by the road leading from the sea-shore, nothing can be seen but barren cliffs and craggy heights, covered here and there by patches of the moss peculiar to the country. After making some progress, the gorge narrows, the moss becomes denser on the overhanging rocks; trees, growing out of clefts in the precipices, unite their branches above the chasm, and shroud the depths, so that, save an hour or two at noon, the rays of the sun do not penetrate to the crystal brook, rippling along at the bottom over its bed of moss-covered pebbles,--now flashing white as it leaps down a declivity, now hiding itself under the overreaching ferns, now coming again into the light, but always hurrying on as though eager to escape from the dark, gloomy retreat, and, for a moment, enjoy the sunshine of the wider valley beyond before losing its life in the sea.
At a narrow turn in the valley and immediately over the spot where the brook has its origin in a spring bursting out of a crevice in the rock and falling into a circular well partly scooped out, partly built up for the reception of the sparkling water, a cliff rises perpendicularly to the height of fifty feet, surmounted, after a break in the strata, by another, perhaps twenty feet higher, the upper portion being curiously wrought by nature's chisel into the shape of a human countenance. The forehead is shelving, the eyebrows heavy and menacing; the nose large and hooked like the beak of a hawk; the upper lip short, the chin prominent and pointed, while a thick growth[pg 172] of ferns in the shelter of the crag forming the nose gives the impression of a small mustache and goatee. Above the forehead a mass of tangled undergrowth and ferns bears a strong resemblance to an Oriental turban. An eye is plainly indicated by a bit of light-colored stone, and altogether the face has a sinister leer, that, in an ignorant age, might easily inspire the fears of a superstitious people.
On a level with the chin and to the right of the face is the mouth of a cave, reached by a path up the hillside, rude steps in the rock rendering easier the steep ascent. The cave can be entered only by stooping, but inside a room nearly seven feet high and about twelve feet square presents itself. Undoubtedly the cave was once the abode of an anchorite, for on each side of the entrance a Latin cross is deeply carved in the rock, while within, at the further side, and opposite the door, a block of stone four feet high was left for an altar. Above it, a shrine is hollowed out of the stone wall, and over the cavity is another cross, surmounted by the mystic I. H. S.
The legend of the cave was told by an old "wise woman" of the neighborhood with a minuteness of detail that rendered the narrative more tedious than graphic. A devout believer in the truth of her own story, she told it with wonderful earnestness, combining fluency of speech with the intonations of oratory in such a way as to render the legend as interesting as a dramatic recitation.
"'T is the cave av the saint, but phat saint I'm not rightly sartain. Some say it was Saint Patrick himself, but 't is I don't belave that same. More say it was the blessed Saint Kevin, him that done owld King O'Toole out av his land in the bargain he made fur curin' his goose, but that's not thrue aither, an' it's my consate they're right that say it was Saint Tigernach, the same that built the big Abbey av Clones in Monaghan.[pg 175] His Riverince, Father Murphy, says that same, an' sorra a wan has a chance av knowin' betther than him.
"An' the big head on the rock there is the divil's face that the saint made him put there, the time the blessed man was too shmart fur him whin the Avil Wan thried to do him.
"A quare owld shtory it is, an' the quol'ty that come down here on the coast laugh if it's towld thim, an' say it's a t'underin' big lie that's in it, bekase they don't undhershtand it, but if men belaved nothin' they didn't undhershtand, it's a short craydo they'd have. But I was afther tellin', Saint Tigernach lived in the cave, it bein' him an' no other; morebetoken, he was a good man an' shrewder than a fox. He made the cave fur himself an' lived there, an' ivery day he'd say tin thousand paters, an' five thousand aves, an' a thousand craydos, an' thin go out among the poor. There wasn't manny poor thin in Ireland, Glory be to God, fur the times was betther thin, but phat there was looked up to the saint, fur he was as good as a cupboard to thim, an' whin he begged fur the poor, sorra a man 'ud get from him till he'd given him a copper or more, fur he'd shtick like a consthable to ye till he'd get his money. An' all that were parshecuted, an' the hungry, an' naked, and God's poor, wint to the saint like a child to its mother an' towld him the whole o' their heart.
"While the blessed saint lived here, over acrass the hill an' beyant the peat-bog there was a hedger an' ditcher named O'Connor. He was only a poor laborin' man, an' the owld woman helped him, while his girl, be the name o' Kathleen, tinded the house, fur I must tell ye, they kept a boord in the corner beways av a bar an' a jug wid potheen that they sowld to thim that passed, fur it was afore the days av the gaugers, bad cess to thim, an' ivery man dhrunk phat he plazed widout payin' a pinny to the govermint. So O'Connor made[pg 176] the potheen himself an' Kathleen sowld it to the turf-cutters, an' mighty little did they buy, bekase they'd no money. She was a fine girl, wid a pair av eyes that 'ud dint the hearts av owld an' young, an' wid a dacint gown fur the week an' a clane wan fur the Sunday, an' just such a girl as 'ud make an owld felly feel himself young agin. Sorra the taste av divilmint was there in the girl at all, fur she was good as the sunshine in winther an' as innycent as a shpring lamb, an' wint to church an' did her jooty reglar.