The custodian greets us at the gate, a keen old fellow, well posted in the history and tradition of his native land and speaking with little trace of brogue. He learns that we are from America; his brother is over there and doing well, as he reckons it, in that Eldorado of every Irishman forced to remain at home.
“O, yes! it is a great country, and how closely the old sod is bound to it; there is no house that you will pass in all your journeys that has not someone there. It has been the one hope of my life to go to America, but it has slipped away from me. I am too old now and must die and be buried in Cashel.”
He said this with a look of sadness, which suddenly forsook his face as he noted our interest in the ruin. It was the joy of his life to tell the story of its every nook and corner.
We found a strange mixture of art and crudity; the square, unadorned lines of the walls and towers would not lead one to expect the exquisite artistic touches that are seen here and there. The great structure once served the purpose of a royal residence as well as a cathedral. The date of the stone-roofed chapel is placed at 1127; that of the perfect round tower is unknown, though doubtless much earlier. The active history of the cathedral-fortress closed with its surrender to the forces of Cromwell, which was followed by the massacre of the garrison and dismantling of the buildings.
CASHEL CATHEDRAL, TIPPERARY.
Our guide urges us to ascend the tower—it is the day of all days to see the golden vale of Tipperary from such a viewpoint—and indeed the prospect proves an enchanting one. It is a perfect day and the emerald-green valley lies shimmering under the expanse of pale-blue sky. In the far distance on every hand are the purple outlines of the hills—they call them mountains in Ireland—and stretching away toward them the pleasant fields intersected by sinuous threads of country roads. The landscape is cut up into little patches by the stone fences and gleams with tiny whitewashed cottages. Flashing streams course through the valley and herds of cattle graze upon the luxuriant grasses. It is a scene of perfect peace, and though the lot of the people may be one of poverty, it is doubtless one of contentment. Right at the foot of the ruin-crowned rock lies the wretched little town, and on leaving the cathedral we stop in the market place. A busy scene greets our eyes; it is market day and the people of the surrounding country are thronging the streets. The market place is full of donkey carts and our car seems in strange company. Old crones with shawls thrown over their heads, barefooted and brown as Indians, are selling gooseberries and cabbages. There appears to be little else in the market and business is far from brisk. There are many husky farmers from the country and bright-looking young maidens that seem of a different race from the old market women. We see and hear much to interest us during our hour’s stop in Cashel.
To one other Tipperary shrine we must make a pilgrimage—Holy Cross Abbey, which is only a few miles away. We see its low square tower just above the trees as we approach the town which bears the same name as the abbey, and we find the caretaker living in wretchedly dirty quarters in a part of the ruin. A genuine surprise awaits the visitor to Holy Cross Abbey. Like Cashel, its outlines give no hint of the superb and even delicate touches of art one will find about the ruin. Nothing of the kind could be more perfect than the east window, in which the stone tracery and slender mullions are quite intact, and there are other windows, doors and arches of artistic design and execution. The abbey stands on the banks of the Suir, and it is just across the shallow river that one gets the finest viewpoint. It took its name from the tradition that it once possessed a portion of the true cross which had been given it by Queen Eleanor of England, one of whose six sons was buried here. And thus it chances that a brother of Richard the Lion-Hearted sleeps amid the mouldering fragments of Holy Cross. The footprints of history cross and recross one another in these ancient shrines, and how often they bring remote sections of the Kingdom to common ground!