SNAKES IN IRELAND
'Touring the West of Ireland recently,' says a reader who lives in Bucks, 'I looked up the lovely mountain of Croagh Patrick in Co. Mayo, 2,000 ft. of rough stony path up which 70,000 or 80,000 pilgrims climb once annually from all parts of the world to attend a service at the summit. Later I asked a garda the origin of this, and he said, "It is in memory of St. Patrick who banished all snakes and reptiles from Ireland." "I think he must have left one or two," I remarked humbly, "as 1 saw a tinker's child with a grass snake only yesterday." He fixed me rather coldly with his eye and said, "Sure it would only be the 'pison' snakes the Holy Saint was consarned with!" Be this as it may, that grass snake was the only one 1 have ever seen, and never a toad or a frog. Is it a fact that there are none or very few in Ireland, and is there any explanation?' I haven't looked for snakes in Ireland and am not sure whether the country harbours the grass snake or not. It is possible that grass snakes are found there even if adders are not, but I shouldn't care to dispute the existence of reptiles in the land With an Irishman. Ireland is such a green and pleasant land that one can comfortably believe that there are no snakes of any sort in it.
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