St. Finbarr's Cathedral, Cork.
From the foot of the street a few minutes' walk will bring us under the old bi-coloured steeple, which contains the famous Shandon Bells. The church was built in 1772. The steeple is unique, inasmuch as the southern and western sides are of white limestone, and the northern and eastern red sandstone—
"Parti-coloured, like Cork people,
Red and white, stands Shandon steeple."
But the "Bells" are the chief attraction, and the quaint inscriptions on them amuse the curious. In the stillness of a summer night their sweet chimes sound with peculiar cadence across the waters which encircle the old city of the Lee. The charter song of Cork is:—
THE BELLS OF SHANDON.
With deep affection and recollection
I often think of the Shandon bells—
Whose sounds so wild would, in days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle their magic spells;
On this I ponder, where'er I wander,
And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee;
With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the river Lee.
I have heard bells chiming full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in cathedral shrine;
While at a glib rate brass tongues would vibrate,
But all their music spoke nought to thine;
For memory dwelling on each proud swelling
Of thy belfry knelling its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters of the river Lee.
Photo—Roche, Dublin.