A Window of Muckross Abbey, Killarney

“This sacred marriage was proclaimed an act of treason by Quane Elizabeth, and for that Florence MacCarthy went to the Tower, but he got the bist of it after all.”

The windows of Muckross Abbey are the most perfect of any ruin in Ireland, and the moldings of several of the doorways are in a fine state of preservation, so that the carving can be carefully studied. There is a cloister thirty-three feet square, encircled by a vaulted corridor seven feet wide and lighted by twenty-two arched windows, which is as good as if it were built yesterday. And in the center of the quadrangle is a venerable yew tree, said to be the largest in the world, having been planted by the monks at the foundation of the abbey in 1340. It was usual, so I am told, for Franciscan monks to plant yew trees in the courtyards of their monasteries, and they are found frequently in ruins. The trunk of this tree is smooth and straight to a height of twenty feet, and is about twelve feet in circumference at the base. The branches spread over the inclosing walls like an umbrella and darken the entire quadrangle, which never had any other roof.

Several legends are woven around this majestic tree which, in the eyes and hearts of the people of Killarney, is an object of great veneration. If any one should injure it, even by breaking off a twig, he would excite popular indignation. They believe that such sacrilege will be punished by the death of the guilty person within a year, and it is a remarkable coincidence that such things have occurred several times.

The kitchen, the refectory, the chapter-rooms, and several other apartments are in an excellent state of preservation and are well cared for, but the cells of the dormitory have almost disappeared. The tower stands as it was five hundred years ago, but is an empty shell, having no roof, flooring, or staircase, and visitors are prohibited from climbing the walls.

Some of the graves are quite modern. Muckross Abbey is still open for the burial of members of four families, who have ancient rights. The latest grave was made in 1902. Several of the epitaphs are quite interesting, particularly those which bear testimony to the virtues and the happiness and usefulness of the women of the O’Donaghue and MacCarthy families. For example, one of them describes a beloved wife, “who, in her progress through life, fulfilled all its duties with uniform and exemplary prudence, whose respectful love as a daughter, whose affectionate kindness as a sister, whose fond and provident care as a mother, and whose endearing tenderness as a wife, were eminently conspicuous. Combining the discharge of social obligations with piety, edifying yet unobtrusive, she lived and died a Christian. To rescue her memory from oblivion, to preserve a remembrance of her virtues for the instruction and imitation of the young, this stone is erected by her disconsolate husband.”

If you want a description of Muckross Abbey that is worth reading you will find it in the works of Sir Walter Scott, who was there in 1825, and if you are pleased with that, and would like a little more of the same sort, read Lord Macaulay’s account of his visit in 1849; in which he says that one of the boatmen on Lake Killarney “gloried in having rowed Sir Walter Scott and Maria Edgeworth about the lake when they were here twenty-four years ago, and said it was a compensation to him for having missed a hanging which took place in the village that very day.”

XXVII
INTEMPERANCE, INSANITY, AND CRIME

There is a great deal of drunkenness in Ireland. There is more in Dublin than anywhere else, but not so much as in Scotland. In Ireland a saloon is called “a public house” and a saloon-keeper is called a publican. All liquor selling is done under licenses granted by the justices of the peace upon petitions signed by the people of the community in which the saloon is to be located. There is no limit to the number of licenses; and there seems to be no particular rule about granting them, except that the fee of one pound must be paid annually. A license once granted is perpetual as long as the annual fee is paid and the police do not show cause why it should be revoked. Licenses are held chiefly by ordinary merchants, at what we would call country stores, by the wayside, at “four corners,” where the peasants go to trade, and along highways frequented by teamsters, jaunting cars, bicyclers, and other people with vehicles. The publican usually puts a watering trough in front of his place, and thus affords refreshment for man and beast. In most of the rural districts licenses are held in families and handed down from generation to generation of storekeepers, who keep bottles on the shelves and manage to sell enough liquor to pay the fees. If the business is sold or inherited the license goes with the place, and many have been running for a hundred years or more.