Corner of the Rose Garden, Bannow House
County Wexford
Of those who made this place a home all have long since passed beneath the "low green tent whose curtains never outward swing" and those who own it now have other houses more to their taste, so this stands tenantless, the silence both without and within broken only by the sound of our footfalls as we explore the empty, echoing spaces.
The park around is fine, but as we pass away we note that nearly all the great timber has been cut down.
It's a sad place, and even our motor seems anxious to leave it.
Our car this year is a 16-20 Clement and on its top speed runs as noiselessly as an electric. It is not an especially good hill climber, though that may be but a temporary fault, as sometimes it sails up an incline with ease, while at others balks at much lesser grades. On the whole I like the car very much, and though two years old and having had hard usage, with but small expense it could be made as good as new. It is certainly to be preferred to the Panhard of last year and is more agreeable to ride in than the sixty horse-power Mercedes of the Duke of M. In those high power cars, unless at full speed, which is impossible on most Irish roads, one is disagreeably conscious of the power beneath one, and rather dreads a breaking away with its ensuing destruction. Certainly but few of these Irish roads are suited to a speed of sixty miles per hour. This car comes from Wayte Bros., of Dublin, and costs twenty pounds per month less than that of last season.
Our onward route lies over the hills to Fethard through Clonmel and across the river Moyle. As we enter, we encounter a funeral, and I notice that they are carrying the corpse round and round what is certainly the town pump. Later I learn that a cross once stood there, also that through the gate by which Cromwell entered the town the dead are never carried.
Boyse has a sister living here, and we pass the night in her home.