XXVI
THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY
The big stages that cross the mountains from Glengariff to Killarney are chiefly loaded with Americans. It is singular how few other nationalities are represented in the passenger traffic. The morning we crossed there were four great vehicles carrying twenty-four persons each, and every passenger, except one German bridal couple and a funny acting Englishman, was from the United States. In our coach were representatives from Cincinnati, Washington, St. Louis, Omaha, Texas, and Minnesota, and I suppose other sections were equally represented upon the three other coaches. Everybody who comes to Ireland takes this ride because it offers the grandest scenery and one of the most delightful experiences that tourists can enjoy. The coach begins to climb slowly through the beautiful glen as soon as it leaves the Eccles Hotel and continues climbing, up and up, for six miles through a dense forest of glowing green, until it emerges into a wilderness of rock and moorland, wild, picturesque, and almost entirely uninhabited. There is very little vegetation, only a few streaks and bunches of grass that grow along the cracks in the rocky surface, or in wind-carried soil that has been caught in crevices. It is one of the wildest places you can imagine, and as we go upward it becomes more so. The stage winds around the brow of a mountain that seems a solid mass of stone, and as far as one can see there is nothing else in the universe except a ribbon of silver that winds at the foot of the slope where we left a river when we began the journey. One has the sensation of awe that solitude often produces, but it is disturbed by the chatter of the passengers. It is as dreary and desolate and lonesome a place as the world contains.
This is a comparatively new road. It was not built until 1838, but, like all the roads of Ireland, it is solid and perfect and made to last forever. The old road, and the principal line of communication between the counties of Cork and Kerry for centuries, ran along the slope of Hungry Mountain, so called because it is so devoid of vegetation that a goat would have to take his luncheon if he went up there. And from there it crossed to the mountain of the “Priest’s Leap,” which was named from a legend that grows out of persecution of the Catholics in Cromwell’s time. The driver told it in this way:
“Ye see, yer honor, in Cromwell’s time there was a bounty of five pun’ fer the head of a wolf and five pun’ for the head of a priest; an’ a dale of money was made o’ both o’ ’em. Well, bedad, one foine day a priest was ridin’ over the hill, whin the Tories caught sight o’ him (we called thim Tories in those days, the blaggards that did be huntin’ o’ the priests), and them that purshued him were jist to lay their bloody hands upon his blessed robe, whin he prayed to St. Fiachna. The blessed saint heard him, and the donkey he was ridin’ gave a lape siven miles from one mountain to the ither, and yees can see the marks of the baste’s hoofs in the solid rock to this day.”
It takes but little encouragement and a minimum of material to supply legends in this desolate and weird region, where every sound seems unnatural and the trembling of a leaf causes the nerves to tingle. The road resembles Brünig Pass in Switzerland more than any other that I have seen, with the Lakes of Killarney corresponding to Lake Lucerne, but it is less civilized and there are very few human habitations.
The coach keeps climbing until we come to the grand divide, 1,233 feet above the sea, where the passage from the “Kingdom of Cork” to the “Kingdom of Kerry,” as once they were called, is made through a tunnel about six hundred feet long and two smaller ones that are cut through the peak of the Esk Mountain. Until these tunnels were built travelers were carried over the rocks to the other end of the road on the backs of men. The country improves a little after the divide is crossed, and there is a gradual descent into a rather good grazing country which belongs to the Marquis of Lansdowne, but even here it is a good deal of a job for a cow to make a living, and there is a proverb that “A Kerry cow never looks up at a passing stranger for fear it will lose the bite.”
The Earl of Lansdowne, who has been governor-general of Canada, governor-general of India, lord of the treasury, secretary of war, minister of foreign affairs, and has held other important offices in the British cabinet, is one of the largest landowners in Ireland, although he spends very little of his time there. He has a long list of Irish titles inherited from his ancestors. In addition to being Earl Wycombe, Earl of Kerry, and Earl of Shelburne, he is Viscount Clanmaurice, Viscount Fitzmorris, Baron of Lixnaw, Baron of Dunkerron, and Viscount of Calstone, and his eldest son is the Earl of Kerry. He traces his lineage to Maurice Fitzgerald, who came over with Strongbow, who also was the ancestor of the earls of Kildare and the Duke of Leinster. The Lansdowne family have intermarried with the Leinsters, the MacCarthys, the Desmonds, the Ormondes, and other of the great families of Ireland, and, near or far, the marquis can claim relationship with nearly all the Irish nobility.
Occasionally we saw a stone cabin in the far distance, from which a pale stream of smoke was arising, but until noonday, when we dropped into the valley and approached the little village of Kenmare, there was scarcely a human habitation. At Kenmare is an attractive hotel, at which a bountiful lunch is served for two shillings, and a little time is given the passengers to rest. Those who wish to do so can take a railway train here and run over to Killarney in three-quarters of an hour, but they will lose the most attractive part of the ride and some of the sublimest scenery in Ireland. The stage commences to climb again shortly after we leave Kenmare, and crawls along the mountain sides between the rocks and the heather all the afternoon. This country was fought over again and again ages ago. The mountain range was a sort of barrier between the warlike clans of MacCarthy and O’Sullivan, who met upon its rocky slopes and slew each other for any pretext, less for reason than for the love of fighting.
The war cries of all the clans of southern Ireland, however, have been heard upon these rocks. “Shannied-Aboo” was the cry of the earls of Desmond; “Crom-Aboo” was the cry of the Geraldines, and the Duke of Leinster has it for the motto upon his coat of arms. The word “aboo” is the Gaelic equivalent to our “hurrah.” The cry of the O’Neills was “Lamh-Dearg-Aboo” (Hurrah for the Red Hand, which was the crest of the O’Neills). The O’Brien cry was “Lamh-Laider-Aboo” (Hurrah for the Strong Hand). The Burkes cried “Galraigh-Aboo” (Hurrah for the Red Englishman). The Fitzpatricks, “Gear-Laider-Aboo” (Hurrah for the Strong and the Sharp).