I know of no more attractive, peaceful spot than Bannow House. It is a large square stone mansion with some centuries to its credit and stands in the meadow-lands close to the sea in the south-east corner of the county of Wexford and in a park of some eight hundred acres. One hears the murmur of the ocean but the house is secluded by avenues of trees which cut off the view of the sea and also shelter the place from the fury of the winds.
Coming into the possession of the Boyse family with the restoration of Charles II., it has grown until to-day, with its spreading wings, it is an extensive establishment, a typical Irish home. You find many such about the land, all charming places to live in. Springing into existence as the use and need for castles passed away, they are built of stone and in the case of Bannow House the stone portico has its monolith columns,—what they call here "famine work." In the dreary winter of 1847 the people worked out their debt to the landlord, for food, etc., in this manner. The fine avenue of trees through which we approached the house is also the result of "famine work."
Entering the house, one finds a large square hall ornamented with spears and shields from Africa and objects from all over the world, gathered throughout the years up to date by its former masters and its present owner.
To one's right is a spacious dining-room, to the left a ball-room, while behind the hall is another square hall holding a stair which ascends on two sides into a gallery above. At the left of this, one enters on the main floor a spacious drawing-room, where I have spent many a pleasant evening.
Bannow is full of the portraits of those who have lived and died here. They face me at the table, peer at me on the staircase from unexpected nooks and corners, and beam down upon me in the mellow lamplight of the drawing-room, each one with a tale of its own, I fancy, and one can trace the passing centuries by the different styles of dress. Yonder damsel with that long neck should have lived in the days of beheading at the block as she would have been a splendid subject; that quaint old gentleman in the corner knew a thing or two and could tell a good story, I doubt not. Yonder lady with the towering wig was a beauty in her day, but, deserted by her husband, who fled to America, she was taken under the patronage of Queen Charlotte. I spend many a moment talking to these old pictures and I think they answer always.
The bedrooms at Bannow range themselves around the gallery,—mine is off at the end of a long passageway and is haunted, so the story runs, by a "grey lady." Wheels are heard driving furiously now and then up the avenue at midnight and pausing at a walled-up door, then the grey lady flits around the gallery and into this room, where some time since in a hidden niche in the wall an ancient rosary was discovered. The dame of the shadows does not appear to be a malign spirit, certainly she has not disturbed me as I have slept very soundly in her old chamber.
To-night as I lean out the window, the moon is at the full, flooding the terrace below, and its stone stairs, guarded by vases and stone pine cones yonder, gleam whitely as they mount under the shadows of an old yew tree. The fragrance of sweet grasses fills the air and the night is full of silence save for the brooding calls of some doves in the forest, and I wait and watch for the grey lady but she does not come.