The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1901-01-19
An American In Ireland.

| An American In Ireland.
If you want to fall head over heels
in love with Ireland ut the very first
sight of her charms, take, as we did,
the steamer from Cappoquin to
Youghal, and float down the vale of the
Blackwater, says Kate Douglas Wiggin
in the Atlantic Monthly The shores
of the Irish Rhine are so lovely that the
sail on sunny day is one of unequal
charm. Behind us the mountains
ranged themselves in mysteriously
melancholy background; ahead the
river wended it's way southwark in
and out, in and out, through rocks,
cliffs and well-wooded Shores
The first tributary stream that we
met was the little Finisk, on the high
er banks of which is Affane house.
The lands of Atfane are said to have
been given by one Of the Fitzgeralds
to Sir Walter Raleigh for Il breakfast,
and it was here that he planted the
first tree in Ireland, bringing it from
the Canary Islands to the Isle of
Weeping.
Looking back just below here, we
saw the towers and cloisters of Mount
Melleray, the Trappst monastery.
Very beautiful and very lonely looked
1.-THE little town Of God" in the shad-
ows of the gloomy hills. We wished
we had known the day before, how
near we We're to it, for we would have
claimed nights lodging ut the ladies'
great house, where all creeds, classes
and nationalities are received with a
caed mile failte hundred thousand
welcomes) and where any Offering for
food or shelter is given only ut the
VISITORS pleasure. The Celtic proverb
"Melodious is the closed mouth" might
be written over the cloisters; for it is
little village of silence and only the
monks who teach in the schools or who
attend visitors are absolved from the
VOW.
Next came Dromana Castle, where
the extraordinary old Countess of Des-
mond was born-the wonderful old
lady whose supposed 40 years so as
tonished postcrity. She must have
married Thomas, twelfth earl of Des-
mond, after 1906 as his first wife is
known to have been alive in that
year. Raleigh saw her in 1850, and
she died in 1904; so it would seem that
she must have been ut least 10 or 112
when she met her untimely death, a
death brought about entirely by her
own youthful impetuosity and her
fondness for athletic sports. Rodney
Sydney, second earl of leicester,
makes the following reference to her
in his TableBook. written when he
was ambassador ut Paris, about 1G4O:
"rhe old Countess of Desmond was
a marryed woman in Edward w time
in England, and lived till toward the
end of Queen Elizabeth, so she must
needles be neare one hundred and forty
ycares old. She had new sett of
teeth not long before her death, and
might have lived much longer had she
not NETT with n kinde Of violent death:
for she would needles clmbe nut tree
to gather nuts; so falling down she
hurt her thigh, which brought fever,
and that fever brought death. This,
my cousin Walter Fitzwilliam told
me-"
9 hot %tNN 90 vYoIk
may have been better reconteur than
historian; still, local tradition vigor-
ously opposes any lessening of the
number Of the countess years, pinning
its faith rather on one Hayman, who
says that she presented herself at the
English court at the age of 40 years,
to petition for her jointure, which she
lost by the attainder Of the last earl;
and it also prefers to have her fall
from the historic cherry tree that Sir
Walter planted than from a casual nut
tree
Down the lovely river we went, lazi-
~ lying back in the sun, almost the
only passengers on the little craft, as
it was still far too early for tourists,
down past Viilierstown. Cooneen Fer
~, Strancally Castle, with its "Mur-
dering Hole" made famous by the
Lords of Desmond, through the Broads
of Clashmore; then past Temple Mi
chael, an old castle Of the Geraldines,
which Cromwell battered down for
"dire insolence," until we steamed
slowly into the harbor of Youghal-
and, to use the drivers expression,
there is no more "onderhanded man.
in" in Youghal than the town of the
Yew Wood, which is much prettier to
the eye and sweeter to the ear.