But Killarney rapidly recedes as we hasten toward Tralee through a country whose bleak hill-ranges alternate with still drearier peat bogs, often of great extent. Everywhere one sees piles of cut and dried peat, the almost universal fuel in Ireland. Its use is evidenced by the thin blue smoke curling from the rude chimneys and by the pungent odor as it falls to the earth under the lowering sky. For the sky has become overcast and gray. We have had—very unusual, too, they tell us—several days of perfect weather; the rule is almost daily showers in Ireland during the summer.
We find Tralee a large, lively town; it is market day and the narrow main street is fairly blocked with donkey-carts, driven by screaming old women, and the heavier, more unwieldy carts of the farmers. The old women often go into a panic at the sight of the motor, and grasp the donkeys by the bridle as though these sleepy little brutes might be expected to exhibit all the fire of a skittish horse; but never one of them even lifts his lazy ears as the motor hums under his nose. It is different with some of the horses, which become unmanageable and swing the heavy carts around in spite of all the drivers can do. And woe to the motorist who should try conclusions with one of these carts that may be suddenly thrown across his way. The wreck of the car would be almost certain and I doubt if the cart would suffer at all. These vehicles are primitive in the extreme; two massive wheels, an oaken beam axle and two shafts made of heavy timbers, is about all there is to one of them. It is with such vehicles that Tralee swarms and our progress to the market square is slow indeed. In the midst of the market place stands a monument surmounted by the figure of a peasant soldier, the inscriptions commemorating the Irish patriots of ’98, ’03, ’48 and ’67, and declaring the “undying allegiance of the Irish people to republican principles.” The hotel where we stop for luncheon is a large limestone building, just opposite the monument. It is fairly clean and the service cannot be complained of; Irish hotels have averaged better than we had been led to expect.
From Tralee we take a rough, neglected road to Tarbert-on-Shannon, running through a desolate hill country—the Stacks Mountains, as they appear to Irish eyes—almost devoid of trees, with mean and often unspeakably filthy huts at long intervals. Most of these huts have but two small rooms; in one the domestic animals—the horse, donkey or cow, with a pig or two squealing under foot—and in the other the family. One is quite as clean and comfortable as the other. The muck-heap is squarely in front of the door; it would be too much trouble to put it to the rear, and it is probably cleared away once or twice a year. But withal, the people are probably happier than the nobles in their castles; a merry, laughing, quick-witted folk who greet us with good-natured shouts of welcome—there is no prejudice against the motor here. The cheeriness of the people contrasts with the bleak and depressing country itself, today wrapped in a gray mist that half obscures the view.
As we passed through one of the bogs, an incident occurred that added to the gloom of the day, and the poverty of the country still leaves a somber impression on our minds. It was a peasant funeral procession, forty or fifty of the rude carts such as we have described wending their way along the wretched road. The plain pine coffin, fastened with knotted hempen ropes, was borne on a cart similar to the others, and yet the deceased was evidently a person of importance, indicated by the large following and several priests in the center of the procession. As we came up they motioned us to pass, and our car crept by as stealthily as possible, though not without disturbing some of the horses. All treated it with good-natured solemnity and many saluted us as we passed. Farther along the road we saw many people at the cottages in readiness to join the procession when it reached them. The incident could not but impress us with the poverty and really primitive character of the Irish peasants of the inland hills—people and a country quite unknown to those who follow the ordinary routes of travel.
Listowel is twenty miles from Tralee, a dilapidated hamlet surrounding a great gloomy-looking church, and above it the shattered towers of the ever-present castle peeping out of a mass of ivy. Ten miles farther over a rough road and we enter Tarbert on a fine wooded headland overlooking the lordly Shannon—truly worthy of such title here—a sweeping river two or three miles in width. For twenty miles or more our road closely follows the southern shore of the broad estuary, and we realize keenly how much of color and distance one loses when the gray rain obscures the landscape. The estuary of the Shannon might well vie with Dingle Bay under conditions similar to those of the preceding day, but we see only a leaden sheet of water fading away in the fitful showers or lying sullenly under the dim outlines of the coast of County Clare.
At Glin we pass beneath the ancient stronghold of the “Knight of Glin,” which recalls the splendor of a feudal potentate who in Queen Elizabeth’s time was lord of an estate of six hundred thousand acres, and whose personal train included five hundred gentlemen. So much glory and an Irish tendency to take a hand in the frequent broils in the west, brought the English Lord President of Ireland with a strong besieging force. The defense was desperate in the extreme. The young son of the lord of the castle was captured by the besiegers and placed in a post of great danger in hope of checking the fire of the garrison; but the ruse had no effect on the furious Irishmen in the fortress. When at last a breach had been made by a heavy cannonade and the fall of the castle became inevitable, the few remaining defenders, uttering the ancient warcry of their house, flung themselves from the shattered battlements into the river. After a lapse of more than three hundred years, one may still see the marks of the cannon-shot upon the heavy walls. And this weird story of the defense of Glin Castle is typical of tales that may be told of hundreds of the mouldering ruins of Ireland.
At Foynes the river broadens still more; “the spacious Shenan, spreading like a sea,” was how it impressed Edmund Spenser, who has left in his poems many traces of his Irish wanderings. But we see little of it in the increasing drizzle that envelops it. Our road turns farther inland to Askeaton, a bedraggled collection of little huts, beneath the lordly ruin of Desmond Castle. There is little else to engage us on our way to Limerick, though we pass through the Vale of Adare, of which the bard has so musically sung:
“O sweet Adare, O lovely vale,
O safe retreat of sylvan splendor;
Nor summer sun nor morning gale
E’er hailed a scene so sweetly tender.”
But it is not so sweetly tender on a dark drizzly evening, and we rush on through the rain to the shelter of an old-time hostelry in Limerick.
Cruise’s Royal is a large plain building perhaps a century or two old and quite unpretentious and comfortable. Limerick is not frequented by tourists and little special provision has been made to entertain them. It is a city of nearly fifty thousand people and has large business interests in different lines. But Limerick has a past, despite its modern activity. Its castle, standing directly on the Shannon, was built by King John in 1205, and the seven original circular towers are still intact. The cathedral of St. Mary’s is even older than the castle, and though restored, many touches of antiquity still remain. The Roman Catholic cathedral of St. John’s is one of the finest modern churches in Ireland, its splendid spire rising to a height of three hundred feet. Its magnificence ill accords with the wretched hovels that crowd around it; for the Irish Catholic seems to take far more pride in his church than in his own home. There is a large percentage of English among the inhabitants of Limerick, which is no doubt a factor in its business progressiveness. The shops which we visited would compare favorably with those of a city of the same size almost anywhere. One of the staple products is Limerick lace and it is sold here at prices so low, compared with the tourist towns, as to quite astonish one.