Between Cork—with its poetic associations of the Shandon Bells, the river Lee, and of Blarney Castle—and the glens and vales of Wicklow, there is no spot to equal in picturesqueness and romantic environment the celebrated valley of the Blackwater, which, forming a broad estuary, mingles with the waters of the Atlantic at Youghal Harbour. The great beauties of the Blackwater only unfold themselves as one ascends the stream some twenty miles above Youghal, but the whole lower river has a placid charm which is quite inexplicable.
For what is Youghal famous, say the untravelled? In matters Irish, for many things, but the most lively interest is awakened by the recollection of Myrtle Grove, the one-time residence of Sir Walter Raleigh, Governor of the Virginia Colony in the New World, who, though he had never been there, is popularly supposed to have introduced its tobacco into Great Britain. As a matter of fact, he did not, but some one of his understudies did; and it was at Myrtle Grove that his servant sought to save him from incineration by deluging him with water while he was smoking his favourite pipe. There is doubtless somewhat of legend about this; and the incident has been worn threadbare in its use by an enterprising firm of tobacco manufacturers; but, since Myrtle
Grove really exists, and Raleigh really lived there, there is some excuse for it.
It was here, too that the potato, since become a too staple article of diet, was first introduced to Irish soil.