One Irish Summer

by William Eleroy Curtis

The River Lee.”

Most of the streets of Cork are wide and well paved, although they are entirely devoid of architectural features and, with the exception of the cathedral, Queen’s College, and the courthouse with a stately Grecian portico, there are no buildings in the city worthy of special mention. On the Parade, as one of the principal streets is called, is a conspicuous pile of carved granite that is intensely admired by everybody. It is designed like a shrine, and under a granite canopy is a rude statue of “Erin,” leaning upon a harp. Outside, at each corner of the pedestal, are still ruder figures intended to represent Wolf Tone, Davis, O’Neill, Crowley, and Dwyer, heroes of the continuous struggle against British domination. The faces of the pedestal are closely inscribed with names, with these lines in English and Gaelic:

“Erected through the efforts of the Cork Young Ireland Society to perpetuate the memory of the gallant men of 1798, 1803, 1848 and 1867, who fought and died in defense of Ireland, and to recover her sovereign independence. To inspire the youth of our country to follow in their patriotic footsteps and to imitate their heroic example.

“And righteous men will make our land
A nation once again.”

The breakfast-room at the Imperial Hotel one morning was filled with a lively and noisy crowd of gentlemen of all ages wearing red coats, waistcoats of startling pattern, jockey caps, leather leggings, and heavy brogans. I was told that they represented the nobility of County Cork, and had gathered to hunt otter along the River Lee and the creeks that feed it west of the city. There was one woman in the party, who wore a short skirt of gray tweed, a red jacket, a jockey cap, and high boots. In the stableyard was a pack of hounds in leash which had been brought in from the country. The Marquis of Conyngham was master of the hunt. Otter hunting in the summer along the swampy, muddy banks of the creeks of Ireland takes the place of fox hunting in the winter. The elusive otter is tracked to his hole by the hounds and is then stirred out by gallant gentlemen with pikes—long poles shod with iron tips—after they have chased him through the mud. They keep the skins for robes, stuff the heads for ornaments, and mount the tails for brushes. These hunts take place at least twice a week during the summer season and are sometimes attended by forty or fifty noblemen and gentry.

Cork is a very orderly city. The laws are strictly enforced. I noticed by the newspaper reports of the police courts that people are fined for profane swearing and for boisterous behavior. We didn’t see a drunken man or woman in Cork, and in Dublin they were common. This is largely due to the work of Bishop O’Callahan and the priests of his diocese and the influence of Father Mathew, the great apostle of temperance, who led a movement that reached every corner of the world about fifty years ago. There are monuments to Father Mathew in many of the cities of Ireland. There is one in Dublin on the principal street, between that of Daniel O’Connell and that now being erected to Parnell, while in Cork the statue of Father Mathew on St. Patrick’s Street is the center and focus of all activity. It faces the entrance to the principal bridge over the River Lee and all the street-car lines terminate there. A memorial church has been erected to his memory here, and the Church of the Holy Trinity, of which he was the pastor, has been restored and enlarged. Father Mathew is buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery, on the outskirts of the city, which was formerly the Botanic Gardens, and was obtained by him for a burial place for his congregation in 1830. His precious dust is inclosed in a fine sarcophagus surmounted by the figure of an angel in white marble.

Theobold Mathew was a Capuchin friar, born in Cork, and was attached to the Church of the Holy Trinity in that city. In 1838 he joined a temperance society that had been started by some Protestant gentlemen, chiefly Quakers, for the purpose of offering an example to young mechanics in his parish. He soon became the leading spirit of the organization, was made its president, and finally started upon a mission throughout Ireland to organize similar societies and to promote total abstinence among the people. From that time he devoted his life to the work, and being an orator of remarkable power and possessed of extraordinary energy, zeal, and devotion, he excited the interest of every class of people and of every community on the island. The influence of his agitation was felt in England, Scotland, Australia, America, and in every other part of the world until his name became a universal synonym for temperance. Father Mathew’s Total Abstinence societies are still found in almost every city and town in which the English language is spoken. He addressed immense audiences and spoke twice on Tara Hill, which was the throne of the kings of Ireland before Julius Cæsar ruled at Rome. He administered total abstinence pledges to half the people in the country, and intemperance in drink, with its attendant evils and misery, almost disappeared from Ireland. The famine that followed his crusade destroyed much of the good effect, because it demoralized the people and many tried to drown their sorrows in drink. It has been said that Father Mathew died of a broken heart, because so many of his converts violated their pledges, but, since the days of Peter the Hermit, no individual has exercised such a moral influence.

“Now, Terence, me b’y, tell the loidies and gintlemen all ye know, an’ kape the rist to yoursilf,” was the parting injunction of the porter of the Imperial Hotel to the jarvey of the jaunting car, as he tucked the rugs around our legs and started us off for Blarney Castle, which is five miles from town. It is a delightful drive, for the suburbs of Cork are surrounded by fertile farms and the pastures are illuminated with buttercups in summer, and inclosed in hedges of hawthorn that are bright with blossoms. All nature seems to be in a cheerful mood these days, and the frequent rains, which interfere considerably with motoring, give an appearance of freshness to all the vegetation and a vitality to the trees and plants and flowers and everything growing. That is peculiar to Ireland. It is true that showers come down and cease with surprising suddenness and frequency, and the rain falls as if it was very heavy and had dropped a long distance, but if you carry an umbrella, and that is the universal custom, you are none the worse for it.

A narrow-gauge baby railway starts from outside the campus of Queen’s College in Cork and runs to Blarney, a town of about eight hundred inhabitants, mostly farmers, who cultivate the surrounding soil and breed cattle, while their wives and daughters work in a woolen factory belonging to the Mahoney brothers, which is said to produce the best tweed in the kingdom. And you can buy suitings at the shops in Cork. Nothing is sold at the factory.

Blarney Castle, as everybody knows, is one of the best preserved and most beautiful of the many ruins of Ireland, and is probably better known throughout the world than any other because of the marvelous qualities of a famous stone which forms a part of its walls. As Father Prout in one of his verses expresses it: