“Glengarriff! on thy shaded shore
I’ve wandered when the sun was high,
Have seen the moonlit showers pour
Through thy umbrageous canopy:
. . . . . . . . . .
Glengarriff! might I but delay,
. . . . . . . . . .
I would not say good-bye to thee:
Alas! far distant is the day
When I thy charms again may see.
Yet, in the land remote of mine,
Remembrance will thy grace renew,
So, as thou canst not call me thine,
Glengarriff! loveliest, best, adieu!”
This valleyed and landlocked harbour of Glengarriff terminates Bantry Bay, which, says Mr. Kipling, “lies just to the eastward of the Fastnet, that well-worn mile-post of the Atlantic liner.”
In Kipling’s “Fleet in Being,” which first appeared in the Morning Post (London) in
1898, and of which even this author’s most ardent devotees appear too frequently to have no knowledge, are to be found some wonderful bits of descriptions of Irish coast scenery. Therein are recounted virile experiences and observations on board the flag-ship of the Channel fleet during the autumn manœuvres; and, from Lough Swilly in the north to Bantry Bay in the south, the author depicts, with a master mariner’s fidelity, the characteristics of the coast-line,—its harbours, bays, headlands, and ports,—in so incomparable a fashion that it is to him that we must accord the rapidly increasing appreciation of, and interest in, the charms of Ireland as a tourist resort.