Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1912-07-19
TELLS OF IRELAND
View of Killarney 1000 Feet
Above Sea Level.
Scene Forms Regular Panorama Of
Beauty-Mountain, Lake, Moor and
Meadow Combine to Make Pic
ture Rarely See

Observation-Disclosures has been so
often and so vividly described by po-
cts and other literary lights, and it's
beauties SO often reflected by the
painter, that attempts to say anything
original about it would be almost an
impossibility.
When one speaks or writes of Kill
larney it mean to those who have
travelled extensively that practically
the last word has been said in defining
natural beauty or artistic surround
ings. Set amid a series of surround
ing hills, the highest OF which rises to
more than 5000 feet above the sea
level, the e of which the ancient
town is the center forms a regular
panorama of beauty.
Mountain, lake, moor and meadow
combine to make a picture rarely seen,
ever by those who have travelled in
many lands. A climate mild as 1t is
possible to conceive, sunshine and
showers, or as a distinguished poet
has described 1t, smiles and tears"
alternating, the wind from the noun
tains tempered by the milder breezes
of the lakes, Killarney is not alone a
beauty spot in nature, but a health re-
sort as well.
The traveller walking down to the
waters edge from the neighborhood
Of the Victoria hotel at the lower end
Of the lake, when the sun rises in the
morning or sets in the evening, will
see unfolded before him a picture
which will linger in the memory while
he lives.
A mile OF SO across the lake from
Innisfallen, Ross castle is in view, one
Of the most picturesque Of the ancient
ruins o Killarney. Its tall quad
%rangular tower, or keep, was origin
ally inclosed by outworks, built by n
Of the family Of O'Donoghue Ross and
believed to date from the fourteenth
century. It's spiral stair Of stone
leading to the top commands an inter
esting view OF the lower lake, the IS
lands and the mountains all around.
Almost beneath it are the remains of
the old Abbey of Muckross, founded
in 1440 by the Mccarthy family on
the foundation of a much older church
destroyed by fire in 1892.
The ruins of the church and con-
vent, measuring about 100 feet. in
length, and consisting of choir, nave,
transept, tower and c~loister, still re-
naming nearly perfect, despite the
lapse of centuries, with a beautiful
quadrangle of arches, some with point
cd and some semicircular heads, con-
stitute n of the most picturesque
Of all the Irish ruins. In the center of
the square within the abbey is a yeW
tree, said to be as old as the abbey it.
self.
One Of the quaintest Of the tradi-
lions connected with the mountains
environing Killarney is associated
with the Devils Punch Bowl" and
Mangerton mountain.
Rowed through the lakes by one Of
the veteran boatmen Of the town, he
enlivened the excursion by a series
of stories which several Of his lis
teners felt would not have done any
great discredit to the late Baron Nun
chausen.
His version of what the Devils
Punch Bowl meant, as contained in
the legend still credited In the local
when his own country gets too hot
for him, goes up to the punch bowl
and takes his whisky hot there, or,
as the old oarsman said, "Or maybe
a Tom and Jerry as we used to
call it when l lived in Boston"
When the traveller has rowed across
the lakes, and listened to one Of these