It is altogether incomprehensible to the writer that the real charm and romance of this castle, standing up in its fifteenth-century sternness amidst one of the greenest and most smiling districts in all green Erin, have been so obscured, of late, by the popular and vulgar traditions which are perpetuated in the horse-play of holding one another head downwards over the battlements to “kiss the stone,” though this is no longer really necessary, since another more conveniently placed stone has been provided for the purpose. It is a procedure which creates much excitement among a certain class of “trippers,” and, as it keeps a certain amount of coin in circulation in the neighbourhood, it may be accounted as a perfectly legitimate enterprise in that no actual harm is done. What a pity it is, though, that Ireland has no commission for the care of historical monuments, as has France!
Macroom, i. e., the Plain of Croom between Cork and Killarney, was once the home and gathering-place of the famous song-bards of the ancients, the druids.
Certainly the druids left a considerable impress upon Ireland, as they did upon Wales
and Bretagne; though it may be questioned to-day, in the light of the latest information concerning the druidical race, if their strains of melody actually did pale the cheek of beauty, or even “rise the slumbering passion of the warrior to slaughter.”