One Irish Summer

by William Eleroy Curtis

Waterford is a busy, clean, dignified old town with large shipping interests, which are conducted upon a wide quay that follows the bank of the River Suir and is faced with substantial walls of stone. The cargoes of the vessels are loaded and unloaded from the roadside. The commercial business consists of the export of bacon, which is famous, barley, and other agricultural produce. A good many live cattle are sent over the channel to feed the enemies of Ireland. The stores and shops are upon streets that run at right angles with the river. The professional men occupy blocks of former residences in the neighborhood of an ancient courthouse which faces a park, usually filled with babies and blue-eyed children playing on the grass. Back in the city the ground rises from the river to a hill that was once crowned with a castle, a cathedral, a monastery, and several other institutions of warfare, charity, learning, and religion. A “Home for the Widows of Deceased Clergymen of the Church of Ireland” occupies the site of the palace of King John. When I dropped a penny in the lap of an old crone, who squatted at the gate, she looked up at me with the winning smile of her race and said:

“May you have a happy life, sor, and a paceful death and a favorable joodgment.”

There are few beggars in the Irish cities to-day, such as you read about in the tales of travelers who were here twenty or even ten years ago. There are two or three in Dublin hanging around the entrance of the hotel, usually with flowers for sale or something else to offer as compensation for your money, and when one goes into the slums he is apt to be approached by drunken men and drunken women. But outside of Dublin we didn’t see a single beggar.

Besides being famous for the best bacon in the United Kingdom, Waterford is the ancestral home of Field Marshal Lord Roberts and that intrepid sailor, Lord Charles Beresford, who was annexed to the United States at a Gridiron dinner during a visit to Washington several years ago. It has a population of about thirty thousand, was founded by the Danish King Sigtryg of the Silken Beard, and for centuries was the seat of the McIvors, the Danish kings, who arrived in 870 and ruled until Strongbow and the other Norman adventurers came over from England in 1169. At the principal corner in the town are the remains of a castle built by Reginald McIvor in 1003, and it still bears his name. The city has endured many sieges and attacks. At one time it was almost entirely destroyed. For centuries it was the most important city in Ireland after Dublin, and is now the fourth seaport. It was loyal to the king when the pretender Perkin Warbeck claimed the throne of England, and Cromwell was unable to reduce it even after a long siege. It was the only city in Ireland that Old Ironsides did not conquer, and thereby it earned its motto, “Urbs Intacta.” Beside Reginald’s Tower very few of the ancient walls remain, but there are two old churches of great interest. One of them, the Protestant Cathedral, stands upon the site of a church built in 1050 and the bishop’s palace and deanery adjoin it. The present structure was erected in 1774 by John Roberts, architect, the great-grandfather of “Bobs,” the hero of Kandahar, now Earl Roberts of the British peerage. He was the architect of several other important buildings in the city.

In 1693 a colony of refugee Huguenots came to Waterford from France. They were kindly received and the bishop gave them the choir of an ancient monastic church as a place of worship. It became known as “the French Church” for that reason. Among the immigrants was a family named Sautelles, whose daughter married John Roberts, a rising young architect, in 1744. They had twenty-four children, and both are buried within the roofless walls of the chancel of the old church. One of the sons, Rev. John Roberts, rector of St. Nicholas’ parish, married the daughter of his associate, Rev. Abraham Sandys. Sir Abraham Roberts, their son, married Miss Sleigh, the daughter of a family prominent among the gentry of the neighborhood, and died in 1874, leaving issue Frederick Sleigh Roberts, the present earl, who spent his happy boyhood in an old manor-house in the suburbs of the city.

All of the Roberts family for several generations have been buried within the walls of the old French Church, and it is still used for the tombs of the passing generation of a few old families who possess that enviable privilege. The latest monument bears the date of 1881, and “siveral places are bespoke,” the custodian told me. The ruin is kept with the greatest care. The ivy mantle that covers the walls is tenderly trimmed each spring and fall, the turf is cut frequently, the gravel walks are raked every day, and when I remarked upon this peculiarity not often observed in the crumbling castles and churches of long ago, the custodian exclaimed with pride:

“It’s all thrue, as yer honor has said, ivery wurrd of it, an’ it’s as dacent a ruin as you’ll find in all Ireland.”

Several illustrious characters in Irish history are buried in the cathedral. Among them are Strongbow and his son who was carved in twain by his amiable father on the field of battle because he acted as if he was afraid of the enemy. It is entirely appropriate that so energetic and comprehensive a person as the first Earl of Pembroke should have two tombs, and no one has any right to complain. He is buried in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, as well as in the cathedral at Waterford, and lies quietly in both places. And only a few days ago I noticed that Edward VII., King of England, was paying a week’s-end visit to his descendant, the present Earl of Pembroke, at his country seat, Wilton House, in Wiltshire.

Everything in Waterford seems to be inclosed by high stone walls—even the bishop’s palace and the poorhouse—and when I asked a man I met on the street why it was so, he answered:

“They’re old walls, sir, very old, and were put up when they were needed. They’re not taken down, for they may be needed again. The poor guardians are afraid they’ll lose a pauper, and the bishop some of his prayers.”