Kilkenny Castle
Glendalough began to decline more than six centuries ago, and to-day holds nothing save a few ruined churches, the stately round tower, and many graves deep down in its vale, guarded by the brooding mountains. Its silence is rarely broken except when one more is added to the quiet company which lies around, or when some wanderer from the outer world remembers that Glendalough has been and pauses a moment to offer devotions at her crumbling shrines.
How completely one's thoughts shift from the ancient heathen history of this island to gentler times and songs, waving trees, sunlight, and the music of waters as the car rolls through the Vale of Ovoca, where gentle Tom Moore's spirit still seems to be singing of its bubbling streams.
Stop at the old stone bridge and lean a while upon its parapets and you will be just over the tree, now a gaunt dead skeleton with all its glory gone, where he wrote the poems so dear to all of us. Beneath you murmurs one of the streams, and, just beyond, it rushes joyously to its meeting with the other, and the old tree stands on a point at the meeting place. The waters plash and sing and dance away and away, the years have rolled by, and the poet is gone, but his verses live on for ever, and pilgrims from all over the world come to this spot which he found beautiful.
To-day as we roll up there are a party of women all from my own land, I should judge, and each takes her seat for a moment under the great skeleton where Moore sat and wrote his songs for mankind.
The east and west sides of Ireland are very different. On the latter lies all the grandeur and ruggedness, as though nature had been carved and hewn by the tremendous blows of the North Atlantic's winds and waves, and all the music is wild and weird; while on the eastern side all is like a beautiful park, pastoral and full of sunshine and flowers. Moore's melodies sound all around one and if a lad or lassie sings in passing it will be of Robin Adair or Aileen Aroon. The former lived just back there in Hollybrook House and the latter dwells all over the mountains and down in every vale.
The entire ride from Bray to Bannow is over fine roads and affords constant panoramas of sunlight, seas, and stretches of woodlands and grass-lands, with here and there a stately mansion keeping ward over a beautiful park and with many gushing, bubbling rivers and brooks. The air is laden with the perfume of the sweet grasses, and the way is bordered by blossoming hawthorns and wild roses. Quaint villages and ancient cities nestle by the sea, whose waters murmur peacefully, forgetful that storms have ever been.