“We do not remember,” says an authority not given to rhapsody or exaggeration, “in the chronicles of royal progresses, to have met with any description of a scene more splendid, more imposing, more joyous, or more memorable, than the entry of the Queen into the Irish capital.” The houses were absolutely roofed and walled with spectators. They were piled throng above throng, till their occupants clustered like bees about the vanes and chimney tops. The noble streets of Dublin seemed to have been removed, and built anew of Her Majesty’s lieges. The squares resembled the interiors of crowded amphitheatres. Facades of public buildings were formed for the day of radiant human faces. Invention exhausted itself in preparing the language of greeting, and the symbols of welcome. For miles the chariot of the gay and gratified Sovereign passed under parti-coloured (not party-coloured) streamers, waving banners, festal garlands, and triumphal arches. The latter seemed constructed of nothing else than solid flowers, as if the hands of Flora herself had reared them. At every appropriate point jocund music sent forth strains of congratulation; but banners, flowers, arches, and music were all excelled by the jubilant shouts which tore the empyrean, loud, clear, and resonant, not only above drum and trumpet, but above even the saluting thunders of the fleet.
VISIT TO AN IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOL.
Perhaps, apart from the mere loyal enthusiasm of the occasion, the most important and significant incident of the visit was the following. It did not fail to be remarked that the first institution which Her Majesty visited in the capital was the central establishment of the Irish National Schools—the first-fruits of Irish liberty, and the noblest possession of the Irish people. The Queen knew that in these excellent schools the youth of all persuasions were trained together, not in the love and pursuit of knowledge alone, but in the habit of tolerance and the spirit of charity. The Queen, by this visit, passed her personal approval and sanction upon a system which is equally the antithesis of sectarian discord and the promoter of religious independence. Here, also, she discovered (or already knew, as was much more likely) that there was imparted the most useful, solid, and practical instruction, one of a character most precisely adapted to the wants, pursuits, interests, and occupations of the classes in whose behalf it was devised. In her survey and inspection of the Normal Schools, the Queen was attended by the Protestant and the Romanist Archbishops, and the representatives of other Christian denominations, friendly to the great scheme, stood beside and around her. That quite as much importance and significance as we have accorded to it was assigned to this visit of the Queen to the Normal National Schools, sufficiently appears from these closing sentences of the Report of the Irish Education Commissioners for 1849:—
We cannot conclude our Report for 1849 without alluding with pride and gratitude to the visit with which our Model Schools were honoured on the 7th of August, by Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and by her Royal Consort, Prince Albert, accompanied by your Excellency. We are convinced that this visit, so promptly and cordially made, has left an indelible impression upon the hearts of the poor of Ireland, for whose benefit our system has been established; and that they will ever regard the compliment as the most appropriate and decisive that could have been paid by Her Majesty to themselves. All reflecting men, whether friends or opponents of our institution, have not failed to see the importance of the step. By the country at large it has been hailed as an eminent proof of Her Majesty’s wisdom and goodness, and as peculiarly worthy of the daughter of that illustrious Prince who was the ardent advocate of the education of the poor, when denounced by many as a dangerous novelty; and of their united education on just and comprehensive principles, when most men regarded it as impracticable.
VISIT TO THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY.
Four years later, when the first International Exhibition was held at Dublin, the Queen renewed her acquaintance with her Irish subjects. Making a somewhat lengthened stay at the vice-regal residence, she charmed the people by the freedom with which she mingled amongst them, and by the special attention and the bounteous patronage which she bestowed upon the little-developed but beautiful specimens of their indigenous textile industries in the Exhibition building. A third and a much more prolonged visit was made in the autumn of 1861, the Queen having honoured Lord Castlerosse and Mr. Herbert of Muckross, two gentlemen whose seats and demesnes are situate on the shores of the beauteous Lakes of Killarney, by accepting their hospitable invitations. Over the lakes, their islets, and their surrounding mountains and mountain passes, the Queen roved as freely and unrestrainedly as was her wont in the retreats in which she had year after year sojourned, after the turmoil of the London season, in the Scottish Highlands. It was observed with pleasure that, amongst other indications of change which the whirligig of time had brought round, Mr. James O’Connell, the brother of the “Liberator,” dined more than once with Her Majesty at the tables of her noble and gentle hosts; and the hounds that forced a stag to take to the Lake—one of the immemorial sports associated with Killarney—formed a portion of the pack which belonged to his two sons.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE WORLD’S CONGRESS OF INDUSTRY.