The usual dram-shop exists near this one-time shrine of the cross and outside of it we found a man somewhat half seas over who had insisted upon showing us the abbey, but we were equally insistent that we would not submit to such a desecration, and so the good woman in charge of it, with much pleasure on her part,—"the likes of him, to be sure, to be troublin' the gintlemen!"—had locked him out. He was on hand when we came away, determined to get at least a sixpence for a drink, but to all of his wiles we proved insensible. Just before we entered the car he moved off a pace, and regarding me from top to toe remarked, "Well, I must say, sor, that's the handsomest fitting coat I ever saw." As said coat was a wretched production of a Chinese tailor of Yokohama the flattery was too fulsome and fell flat, upon obdurate ears, but he bestowed his benediction upon us for all that as the car rolled off.
This section would seem to be the very heart of Ireland. There are traces of ecclesiastical ruins everywhere, and one's interest is intensified each moment until it reaches its climax some nine miles from Holy Cross, when the land drops gently into a vast valley from the centre of which, rising some three hundred feet, and crowned with ruins, towers the Rock of Cashel. At its base clusters the town and in the spreading meadows round about there are many stately ruins. As we approach, the town gives scant evidence of life, until one wonders whether any one exists there. We certainly do not see a half-dozen living things, men or animals, before we desert the car and climb the rock.
It is a glorious day as we pass upward to the hill and the old town and ruins take on a kindly look under the streaming sunshine—for sunshine "streams" in Ireland; the sky is never cloudless and the sun breaking through sends its light always in long streaming shafts, as though it were a great searchlight directed by some giant power; and so it is to-day, and just now it is turned full upon the Rock until all the ruins seem quivering with life.
But it passes, and as we enter and the iron gate clangs behind us the whole place is full of the sadness of decay. This was the Stirling of Ireland for here is cathedral, castle, and round tower.
Photo by W. Leonard
Ancient Gateway, Kilmalloch