One Irish Summer

by William Eleroy Curtis

The Pass of Keimaneigh Through the Mountains Between Cork and Glengariff

Nor do I remember a panorama where the fiercer and the gentler moods of nature are expressed in such striking contrast. The eagles and hawks that soar in the narrow skyline, directly above our heads, and encircle the rugged and irregular peaks that rise on either side, look down upon an exhibition of wild flowers that was never surpassed, and the colors seem to be more brilliant than elsewhere.

People always ask, How did they come there?—these blotches of scarlet and purple and pink and blue and gold against the dark gray surface of the rock. The wind was the landscape gardener here, and a wonderful artist he is. The dust that gradually accumulated in the crevices and scars of this mountain wall was carried, storm by storm, from some dry spot, upon the wings of the wind. And the same messenger carried the seeds, perhaps for many miles, and dropped them in the nest that he had already provided, where the sun and the rain could reach them and they could germinate and their souls could awaken. The germs of life that lay hidden in their tiny cells then reached out for air and began to grow and bloom and illuminate this stern and gloomy canyon with their smiles. As the journey continues the gorge grows wilder, the walls higher, and the vegetation less, except in the turf beside the roadway, where the violet, the forget-me-not, the belated shamrock, and that other modest little flower called “London Pride,” sing a silent song of praise to Heaven.

They call Glengariff “the Madeira of Great Britain,” because its climate varies only a few degrees, winter and summer, and is about the same as that of the Madeira Islands, without a trace of frost or snow except up among the rugged mountains that protect it from the cold winds and make it an ideal resort for those who seek health, rest, or solitude. The name signifies “a rough glen,” and that describes it exactly—a deep cleft in the mountains, a gash which some irresistible glacier made ages ago in the rugged rocks, about three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide, which terminates upon an exquisite little sheet of water, a branch of the Bay of Bantry, on the far southwestern coast of Ireland. The glen is filled with wonderful trees and wonderful flowers, which seem to bloom perennially. The surrounding mountains are of the wildest description, being naked moorlands covered with heather and gorse and huge gray bowlders and peaks which project into the air. Among them, it is said, there are no less than 365 little lakes, that number having suggested to the pious peasants, who attribute everything to apostolic interposition, that some holy saint prayed effectually for a separate one to supply water for each day of the year. The rocks reach far away to the westward and down into the cold blue of an uneasy ocean, which beats impetuously upon the outer walls, but the water is seldom disturbed by more than a ripple within the bay. For a combination of ocean, mountains, lakes, rocks, waterfalls, forests, and flowers I have never seen the like, and any one can easily understand why Glengariff is called the most beautiful spot in Ireland.

The town of Glengariff is composed of fourteen houses, six saloons, a post office, a vine-covered headquarters for the constabulary, which looks altogether too picturesque and beautiful for such a practical purpose, a Catholic church, brand new and built with money from America, an old church where the Catholics formerly worshiped, now used as a school for teaching lace making, a pretty little Church of Ireland chapel, an ivy-clad rectory adjoining, and several comfortable hotels. There are four hundred inhabitants in the parish, mostly farmers, scattered within the glen and upon the surrounding rocks. They are mostly Harringtons, Sullivans, Caseys, and O’Sheas, and are nearly all related. All the population are Roman Catholics, except twelve families who belong to the Church of Ireland and are ministered to by the Rev. Mr. Harvey, who is paid a salary of £200 a year and is given a picturesque old manse in the midst of one of the loveliest gardens and groves you can imagine.

Eccles Hotel has been famous for more than a century. You will find a flattering account of it in Mrs. Hall’s book on Ireland, published in the ’50s. And, by the way, that work contains a charming description of the country, although so much in detail that it fills three ponderous volumes that weigh four or five pounds each. There have been many changes since the book was written, but they concern only the people and their customs. Its historical references, its legends, and descriptions of scenery hold good to-day.

The hotel, not the book, is a rambling, irregular structure with many gables and many chimneys, and is almost completely covered with a lustrous robe of English ivy. It sits at the foot of the glen where the rocks and the ocean meet and the prospect from the front windows is unsurpassed. The bay is enclosed like a wall with mighty mountains. Titanic rocks have rolled down into the water in some great cataclysm and now lie in picturesque shapes, here and there, as a tasteful artist would have arranged them, clad in vivid green. The outlines of the bay are irregular. Little arms of water reach up among the rocks that inclose it, and, when the tide goes out, it discloses deep beds of wondrous seaweed, curious vegetable and animal forms that Nature in her fantastic moods has designed in her studio under the waters of the sea. In the foreground at the right is a landing place for the little steamer that comes over from Bantry twice a day, and beyond it, rising from a rocky eminence, are the ruins of an ancient castle with a tower intact that was once a stronghold of the O’Sullivans, when they were kings in these parts. Now it belongs to the estate of the late Earl of Bantry.

On the other side of the bay a long point of land protrudes across the horizon, and there it was that the French troops intended to land under Wolfe Tone and General Hoche on Dec. 26, 1796. There were 17 ships of the line, 13 frigates, 5 corvettes, 2 gunboats, and 6 transports, with about 14,000 men and 45,000 stands of arms, and it was expected that the news of their landing would be the signal for an uprising of the Irish people. Simon White, who lived near the point where the landing was to be made, was a man of quick movements and energy, and as soon as the fleet was sighted he saddled his horse and rode direct to Cork—sixty-five miles—in half a dozen hours to notify the military commander and other authorities of the invasion. For that the king made him the Earl of Bantry and gave him a strip of land around the bay twenty-two miles on one side and twenty-two miles on the other, stretching back into the mountains an average of six miles. The title has lasted through three generations, but has expired because the third Earl of Bantry left no son to wear it when he died a few years ago.

Providence intervened, however, on the side of the English, and averted what might have been a disastrous struggle with France, with Ireland as the battlefield, as well as a civil war for the overthrow of British authority. A storm came up and dispersed the fleet. When the wind subsided, a dense fog overspread Bantry Bay and the ocean. When the air cleared the ships were so scattered that each sailed away on its own account during the next fortnight, and one by one they returned to the harbors of France. General Hoche, in the Fraternitie, finally reached Rochelle, after several narrow escapes, with his ship in a sinking condition. Several of the largest ships went upon the rocks, and about eighteen hundred sailors and soldiers perished. No Frenchman trod upon Irish soil with the exception of a lieutenant and seven seamen, who were sent out in a small boat from one of the ships during the fog to reconnoiter, and, running aground, were captured by James O’Sullivan.