Travel
Travel in Ireland IT is advisable, in the first place, to take a car. The Great Southern Railway, possibly the most libelled institution in Ireland, whose imposing network of lines efficiently serves the whole of the Free State, though entirely adequate for the ordinary traveller with a not too conjectural destination, was not, quite properly, designed to meet the more*extrava- gnat whims of the tourist. If you take a car, you will land at either Cork, Rosslare, Belfast or Dublin. Of, the two more probable you will, if you are susceptible to first impres- sions, choose Dublin. It is typical or, if that is imposSible, representative of Ireland. Belfast`is an isolated phenomenon. To appreciate Dublin, abandon any idea of ' seeing-the sights ; they are there to be seen, certainly:—Trinity College and its library with the Book of Kells; St. kichan's and its mummies, Christ Church Cathedral, St. Patrick's and Marsh's Library, " Ireland's Revenge,'? the grotesque statue of Queen Victoria that squats in unlovely rustication in front of Leinster House' where the Dail meets; the Bank of Ireland which used to be the House of "Parliament, the Academy, Phoenix Park with its Zoological Gardens, Mi. de Valera—but none of them, except perhaps the last in rhetorical action, is equipped with those spectacular .qualitics' which have lent its peculiar signifiCance to the term. More- over, they do not provide any real clue to the city. .. In Dublin it is a question of appreciating an atmosphere which exists almost independently of the surroundings which contain it, which has defeated change and is still to'be felC in Georgian streets and_squares, now raided, 'alas ! beyond hope of checking- by- the obtrusive brass - door. ,;plates of commerce, where the sense of prOsperity and importance is today admittedly retrospective. The crowds that Pziks present a show of leigured animation, not, as in LondOn, a blank facade of indifference: There is little haste. The talk you hear, whatever the futilities it embodies, is of those who still use language" as an- art, not as a mechanical device.
When you have disengaged yourself from Dublin, you will turn south. If you take the Greystones road, drive with care until you have passed 'Bray. The population which invades the roadside contains a greater proportion of suicidal lunatics than any other in Western Europe. From Bray you can go along the coast to Wicklow or inland to Glendalough. Glendalough is welLworth _seeing for its lakes and ruined churches, but strenuously, resist_ the attempts that will be made to show you St. Kevin's •bed. It is accessible only with danger to life and limb, and is not worth the risk to either. From Glendalough you can either go west to the Curragh (it is approached direct .from' Dublin through Naas ; and if you go there, accept the regrets for the English regime as state- tnents of an economic rather than a political significance) or south to Wexford and Waterford. The Curragh is dull uhless there happens to be a race meeting, which there generally is, but Waterford and its surroundings are delightful. In Waterford itself are Christ Chuich Cathedral, two interesting friaries, Reginald's Tower, built about A.D. 1000, used in the course of its history both as a fortress and a mint, and partially rebuilt some time in the last century ; nearby are Ardmore, with its group of ecclesiastical ruins (examine in particular the carvings on the outside of the Cathedral) ; Lismore Castle, balanced on a cliff above the Blackwater ; Cappoquin, on the river among hills and trees, and three miles away from it the Trappist Monastery of Mount Melleray, whose monks are famous alike for their piety and their skill in curing dipsomaniacs. Tramore, seven miles away from Waterford, possesses an excellent golf course : and on certain reaches of the Bandon, Suir, and Itlackwater fishing, both for trout and salmon, can be had for the asking. Waterford has a number of adequate hotels, and is the most suitable place from which to examine the counties of Waterford, Wexford, Carlow and Kilkenny. Rosslare is not far away. You may go on to Cork round by Clozunel and Cahir. Clmunel is the capital of Tipperary, and a little more than thirty miles from Waterford. It has seven or eight hotels, in one of which you will fmd suitable accommodation. Except for a Main Guard designed by Wren, the architecture of the town is not remarkable, as is natural in a place which has always bred sportsmen rather than aesthetes. It is an excellent place from which to see Tipperary and Kilkenny. Holy Cross Abbey, the Caves of Mitchelstown, Cahir Castle rising over the Suir, Crotty's Lake and the Comeragh mountains are within easy reach. Kilkenny and the royal city of Cashel are especially worth visiting. If you have time, stay at Cashel, whose ruins on the Rock are probably the most interesting in Ireland.
From Clonmel it is a little over fifty miles to Cork. Cork you will either like immensely or loathe. Many people have found in it the atmosphere of a foreign city. Actually it is very significant of Ireland, more so in certain respects than Dublin. Avoid, if you can, hearing the bells of Shandon. jt is an expensive business, as there is a well-attested ritual of
scattering largesse to the hordes of children who autoinnt ienny gather at the first peal, and you will only hear, for the huri- dredth time, a staccato version of " The Minstrel Boy," or, if you are, or are taken for, an American, an original rendering of some suitable melody. Kissing the Blarney Stone also should be Considered twice, -though the fact that no one has been killed in the process is certainly proof that it possesses some miraculous property. But the County Cork has attrac- tions that are unique, particularly if you are prepared to use your feet. It and 'itrry are the best counties in Ireland for walking.: You can stay more or less anywhere. There are excellent hotels in Cork itself, at Parknasilla and Kenmare, and good ones at Bantry, Macroom and Glengariff. At Kil- larney, about which it is perhaps not necessary to say any- thing, there are more than a dozen hotels of varying degrees of comfort. There are half a- dozen good golf courses in Cork and Kerry, you can bathe wherever there is sea, and free fishing can be had in a number of places. If you are adventurous you trill pay a visit to the Blasket Islands. If you are not, you will read Mr. Maurice O'Sullivan's Twenty Years A-Growing and will go anyhow. A creaking steam tram will take you down -the Dingle peninsula, through a series of tunnelled valleys. When the dark mass of Slea Head is behind you, you will cross the sound to the island in a coracle of skin, which will Seem imperilled front the slightest wave. When you land you Will be in almost another world; almost, for the population is at the moment- composed, with diSconcerting contrast, of the Wanders and emissaries front Oiford and Bloomsbury. From Kerry yOu will go on to Limerick. First of all you will see the Electricity Works at, Ardacrusha, the most con- vincing evidence to be seen of economic progress in Ireland. The city itself need not ""delay you long, though King John's Castle, St. Mary's Cathedral, and the Thoisel are worth seeing. Nearby you should, age' the Falls of Doonass at Castleconnell, wherelthe Shannon leaps magnificentlythrough jagged rocks ; the friary and the Desmond Castle at Askaeton ; and the store' remains round Lough Gur and on the islands in it. Ennis the capital of Clare, is about twenty miles from Limer- ick.- If you go through it on the way to Galway, you should see the Abbey and if you have time, to,go-round that way, the cliffs at Moher (Lahinch, with its excellent golf course, is also in Clare). hi Galway, unless Yon 'are fiirti, you will probably stay as long-as-you-have-in-Kerry.-- There is an excellent hotel, and it is a suitable plziee. from which to explore the "wildly enchanted "region of Connemaik.":=Connemara is as mediaeval as the Blasket. There are hotels in Clifden, but it is perhaps more satisfactory to stayAn Galway. Galway has its own mediaevalisni in the Claddagh," Which loclge2s probably the most inbred community in- the British Isles. . From Galway, you will go on into Mayo' through ,Ballinrobe and Westport. Mallaranny;. where there is another good hotel, is the best place to stay, and ftoM there you can visit Achill Island. You may also, if .you have the energy, climb Nephin or Croagh- patrick and there is excellent fishing, free, in Lough Conn and elsewhere. '.You may go on to Sligo, round by the coast thrOugh Belmullet, where there is a whaling station, or inland through Ballina. About County Sligo, I am not well qualified to speak, foi I was born there, and spent there the first twenty years of a subsequently more misspent existence. I may quote Carlyle : " Sligo at last • beautiful descent into ; beautiful town and region altogether," and an eminent anti- quarian : " County Sligo is one of the most interesting locali- ties in the British Isles," and leave it at that. Perhaps, how- ever, you may prefer Donegal to the north, to many people the most fascinating county in Ireland. There are as few trees there as there ate in Connemara, the cliffs are as wild, and the hills studded with wild flowers which are not found elsewhere. Summer comes there late, but lingers into Octo- ber. The best hotel is at Rosapenna, but the county is well- equipped with others,-and with amenities for the less-sophisti- cated forms of entertainment. There are, for instance, over
twenty golf 'courses. • From Donegal, you will pass through Londonderry, the only city in Ireland which has preserved its walls and gates intact, and the capital of a prosperous county, into Antrim, a county impossible to define, which changes from wooded glens and pastures" to the hexagonal columns of the Giant's Cause- way, and again to the industrial vigour of Belfast. From Belfast you may go west to Lough Neagh, or south by Strang- ford Lough into CoUnty Down, a county of peaceful farms, where everything looks more attractive at a distance. You may go west again to see the cathedral town of Armagh, and from there south to Newry, where you come into the Free State again. Dundalk, which is not far from it, is seen at its best on a market day ; from -it, you can reach Dublin com- fortably in the day, passing through Meath and the rest of Louth, and stopping perhaps at Drogheda on the Boyne. When you return to Dublin, you will decide whether to return to England or to start again for the south.
SCUMS MACGEARAII.T.
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