The Charm of Ireland

to a beautiful river; just to the south lie the Wicklow hills-one can reach their foot by tram-line and some of their wildest beauties are within an hour's walk; a short run by rail

, and by this route one gets the full beauty of the Wicklow pass

imes spanning a deep gully, sometimes skirting a sheer precipice-and the view at every turn is very romantic and beautiful. The train pauses at Bray, and then, still hugging the coast, reaches Wicklow

for it is peculiarly true of a side-car that two are company and any larger number a

; and the greenest of green fields ran back to the hills on either side. Here the gorse began, mounting the hillsides in a riot of golden bloom, only to be met and vanquished on the highest slopes by the low, closely-growing heather, brown with last year's withered flowers, but soon to veil the hilltops in a cl

ht a glimpse of Avondale House, a school of forestry now, but sacred to every Irishman as the home of Parnell. A little farther on, Castle Howard glooms down upon the valley where the Avonmore meets the

racken was alive with rabbits. It was a game preserve, our driver said, and he told us to whom it belonged, but I have fo

away for six months for the

ld grudge you a ra

get their hands on one of us. Why, sir, 'tis a crime for a man to be caught on the far side

or keeping each section of road in shape was let each year by the county council to the lowest bidder, and the roads inspected at regular intervals to see that the work was properly done. Two shillings a day-fifty cents-was about

ndalough-and let me say here that the word "lough," which occurs so frequently in Irish geography, means lake, and is pronounced almo

y St. Patrick himself, and he brought his boy up a Christian; and Kevin had never the slightest doubt as to his vocation, but knew from the very first

them, seeing him so fair and saintly, lost her heart to him entirely, and her head as well, for she grew so shameless that she followed him in his walks, pleading with him, touching his hand

the manner of women, she loved Kevin more desperately after he had beaten her than she had before, and that finally the Saint, worn out by a struggle in which he saw that he would some day be defeated, resolved to hide himself where no man could discover him, and betook himself to the wild and ina

d cliff's

ow he slee

aven, nor th

le can haun

rth nor he

ower if fo

hile calm

er him lean

e had track

ocky, wil

orning met

glances m

ints have c

om his bed

rude, repu

rom the bee

gh, thy g

ntle Kathle

int (but, a

ve and mour

, "Heaven re

ake light m

ost was se

'er the f

y the lakeside, combing its yellow hair and lamenting its sad fate. What, then, are we to believe? My own theory is that when the Saint opened his eyes, that fatal morning, and found his tempter bending over him, he sprang hastily away, well knowing to wha

way to spread the news of the discovery of a new saint. Great throngs crowded the lake to get a glimpse of him, much to his annoyance, and besought him to come down so that they could see him better. This he sternly refused to do, and told them to go away; but finally he permitted them to build him a little chapel o

e of domestic buildings to protect the students from the rain and cold, and finally a tall round tower, from which to watch for the Norse invader. St. Kevin himself

the Danes in 830 and many times thereafter; but the final blow was struck by the English invaders in

ound lay the ruins of the seven churches, with the round tower rising high above them; and, from among the trees, peeped here and there the thatched roof of a cottage with a plume of purple smoke rising from its chimney. It was like a v

d & Underw

THE RUINS OF ST.

rifically keen and a thick shock of the reddest hair I ever saw. She was a singularly pure specimen, as I afterwards learned, of the red Irish-a sort of throw-back, I s

t lunch?"

nap of a whip, and she stood in the doorway staring

further, for the long driv

is n

the case may be. When you ask your jarvey if he thinks it will rain to-day, his invariable answer is "It will not." I never heard an Irishman admit unreservedly that it was going to rain. But before I had time to ask the red-headed

ntly in the damp ground along the margin of the stream was what Betty declared to be the true shamrock-a very beautiful trefoil, evidently a variety of oxalis, and certainly much nearer our ideal of the shamrock than the skimpy plant shown us by the gardener at Clondalkin. We

e goin' to St. Kevi

the bed?

there, sir," and he p

we get

our honour and you

oored to a rock near by, and I had my doubts as to the wisdom of entrusting ourselves

sed Saint lived for siven years, and if you sit down in his seat you will niver have the backache, and if you lie d

ther. We were tempted. Then I

ke three wishes y

, your

ey come

asked for a light heart, a quick wit and a ready to

he was the first person we had me

s small one of a colt's; and 'twas by a miracle they came there. In the old time, there was a man who stole a mare and her foal, but who denied it, and who was brought before St. Kevin. The Saint placed the man in front of this cross and told him if he was guilty to be sayin' it, and if he

nts, and I could not but admire the ingenuity of

thief?" I asked. "Did

ame it; and the man asked that he be buried in the same graveyard with the Saint himself, and that on his grave a stone be placed with a hole in the middle, so

is a grave there covered by a stone

ame to the door of the inn, "you will be wantin' m

the fare?

nce as you care to

'll be ready presently."

; but I have not forgotten the clean, pleasant dining-room in which it

re was a moon, while at eleven the ghost of the fair Kathleen sat on a stone and sang and combed her hair, and at twelve the wraith of a wicked sorceress struck blind by St. Kevin glided about t

ree in the morning, while the lambs refused to retire until nine at night. The workmen thought these hours excessive, and so complained to St. Kevin, and he listened to them, and looked at them, and when he saw their poor jaded faces and tired eyes wanting sleep, his kind heart pitied

whose gl

ever warb

e, and I did not have time to make any observations for myself

somebody shouted at us, and, as the hills shuttlecocked the echo back and forth across the water, we looked up and saw two men clingin

onder," said our guide. "Them

no danger at all, at all, that they had piloted thousands of people up and down the cliff without a single mishap, glory be to God. I knew they were talking for a tip, and not from any abstract love of truth. But in matters of this sort, Betty is much more impulsive than I-as will appear more than once in the course of this narrative

, with her eyes closed, making her three wishes. Then I sat down and made mine; and then the guides offered to conduct us to St. Kevin's bed, but when I found that the bed was a hole

nt is simply to sit on the edge and slide over and trust to the man below. Fortunately he was on the job, so we live to tell the tale. As to the efficacy

y one family, in which it had been handed down for generations. The father trains his sons in the precise method of handling the climbers, so that they become very expert at it, and there is really no great danger. One member of the fam

e lake, on which are the ruins of St. Kevin's first little church. There is not much left of it, which is natural enough since it was built nearly a thousand yea

mbered that we had twelve miles to ride on a side-car before we reached the station. But he said that it wasn't thunder; there was an artillery camp many miles away among the hills and the rumbling was the echo of the guns. He also assured me, after a look ar

inspector employed by the National Education Board, who had come to Glendalough to inspect the schools in the neighbourhood. He had started out to i

TO ST. KE

F ST. KEVIN

. These sixty-seven varieties must cause a pang of envy in the breast of our own Heinz, for that is ten more than he produces! The particular board which controls the schools is called the National Education Board, and, like all the others, it is in no way responsible to the Irish pe

dren, both Catholic and Protestant, to fill two schools, there will be two, and the two creeds will be separated. This is always done, of course, in the cities, and in the north of Ireland there are separate schools for the Presbyterians; but in the country districts this cannot be done, so th

s, which he wishes to use, he may use; he determines the character of the religious instruction. If he is a Catholic, this is, of course, Catholicism; if he is a Protestant, it is Protestantism-which means in Ireland either

emarked that half the ill-feeling in Ireland is caused by the memory of things that never happened; and furthermore such atrocities as did occur in some far distant day are spoken of as though they happened yesterday. To every Catholic, Limerick is still "The City of the Violated Treaty," although the treaty referred to was made (and broken) in 1691, and Catholics have long since been given every right it granted them. In Derry, the "siege" is referred to constantly

rsed, displaying the words "Religious Instruction" printed on the other side. Then everybody in the schoolhouse who does not belong to the denomination in which religious instruction is to be g

he religious instructi

ibly to eject such a child; but this raised an awful rumpus because, of course, both Catholics and Protestants are anxious to make converts, and the teachers used to say that they had conscienti

riend the inspector, is the struggle to secularise education. And this, he added, will not be a struggle of Protestant against Catholic, but of clerical against anti-clerical, for, while religious instruction is a far more vital principle with the Catholic church than with the Protestant church, Protestant

nspectors, who visit them three times a year and report on their condition. Thes

, with a smile, "that we are in the neighbourhoo

visit some of th

so. Any orderly person has the rig

ttle schools I wis

you will probably scare the teacher out of a year's growth when you step in. He will think you are an inspector

his discredi

rce it, and not over half the children attend school with any sort of regularity. Often, of course, their parents need them; but more frequently it is because the parents are so ignorant themselves that they don't appreciate the value of an education. That isn't th

t on the inspector, with a smile, "and I wish I had them here. The

ere a man wit

to himse

own, my n

teaching them to love the land they were born in, and substituted some ver

e goodness a

y birth ha

in these C

Englis

re was a riot! And the histories had every sort of history in them except Irish history. Ireland was treated as a kind of tail to England's kite, and the English conquest wa

carry on the schools properly. Many of the buildings are unfit for schoolhouses, and the teachers are miserably paid. The school-books are usually poor little penny affairs, for the ch

of the schoolhouse and premises, the second with the school equipment, the third with the organisation, and so on. As

y) to arrangements for

e Religious Instruct

as to this b

ide open to pupils o

y schools, paid by capitation,

ntered. There is also a Punishment Book, in which the teacher, when a child is punished, must enter the details of the affair for the inspector's information; and an Observation Book, in which the inspector is supposed to note suggestions for the teacher

e, if one was made, the persons who made it would rightfully claim some voice in the management of the school. I have heard queer tales of managers' eccentricities. One of them read somewhere of the high educational value of teaching children to fold paper in various shapes, and so had the children in his school devote an hour every day to this exercise. It was popular with

re oral and written English, history, arithmetic, geography, object lessons and elementary science, cookery and laundry work, singing, drawing, needlework, and training of infants. This sounds ambitious enough, but I fancy it is mostly blarney,

ose?" I said, after I had fini

assented em

" I a

ry sensible Englishman will be glad to get rid of us, so his government can have a little time to attend to its own affairs. What Ireland needs is to be chucked overboard and told to sink or swim. We'll swim, of course, but the shore's a long way off, and it will be a hard pull; b

above them, while all about are the mounds and slabs of the old graveyard. All the churches are little ones-mere midgets, some of them-and they are in all states of preservation, from a few fragments of wall to the almost perfect "St. Kevin's Kitchen"-a tiny structure with high stone roof, which was set apart for the Saint's use, and which was so soli

did not believe that Home Rule would help it much. There was no chance, he said, for a man to get ahead. It was a hard struggle for most of them to get enough to eat and a place to sleep and a few clothes to wear. A little sickness or bad luck, and there was nothing left but the workhouse-the workmen's insurance act did not include men like him. His own wages were ten shillings ($2.40) a week, and there were many who could not earn even that. On ten shill

drum; and presently our train came along; and an hour later we were again wa