The Irish standard., 1915-11-13
SOME IRISH TOWNS
THE CITY OF CORK

The CITY
Cork is yet an ocean town, and
when the wind comes full southwest
you can catch the fine tang of in
finite waters on its wings.
And, truly, If too many engineers
had not spoiled the place you might
now be hailed by gondolier at the
slips. For it is everywhere water,
only skilfully fenced and dyked and
bridged. Coming up river from Cove
on q June morning in Shakespeare's
golden summer" of 1894 to see this
Edmund Spenser welded to Lily
Boyle, girl from the silver shore
of Youghal, you would not at all
have disembarked by the modern
bridge, but sat in your cushioned
stern while the boatman sang you
along to the Queens Old Castle.
where the drawbridge was. For, as
yet, Patrick street, with it's perfect
pavement was undreamed, and lit
tie daughter Lee ran down the bed of
the later roadway to the main stream
beyond. A quiet, lazy, water-lapped
town it must have been, we'll suited
for such company as f1ocked Gill Alb.
hey way, that morning when the
English fellow that writes books"
comes south from Kilcolman for his
masterpiece in romance.
And what early inquisitors one can
hear in judgment as the bridal car
riage moves. He's an old man.
sure" and What harm! he knows
the queen" And "Yerra, he can't be
much if it's only books he writes
For it cannot be that Cork, which is
the centripetal town of all repartee
missed that chance of merry badinage
at the expense of the welded English
cent Youghal! For Cork has never
lost that fine flair for testing, as wit
ness the reception of Perkin War
beck, who, local superhistorians sug
gest, was "spoofed" into believing
himself king by the peoples magnifi
cent acquiescence, they themselve.
wondering what would be the end O.
the dire jest, until their heads gave
vivid evidence of the joke. This. then
is the opening epigram, that Cork ha:
no color at all, but is a Kaleidoscope
into which you must read your own
But this one color you will all admit
its supreme loneliness.
And, for proof, l will put 20,
straightway on the South Mall there
on that pile-built roadway, where the
bogs had breasts Of lilies when Fin
barr came prospecting for site Of his
monastery hither long ago. And
standing on the holy ground, lool
west at the magnificent towers of the
new Cathedral with the bronze ange
below, bugling rapture to the town
and, eastward, towards the river hill
and the Cathedral, masts Of ship
crowding the wharves. And castin
your eyes up and down that boulevar
near planted with trees, tell me is
not fair and moving prospect tina
has culture and some old, grave dc
cency in it's designing? See there
too, how the past returns at your cal
-Maclise, the pensioned Highlanders
son, rushing across to work again a
his easel in the dingy old Art SchoC
that yet is destined to lure the world
eyes by reason of his name; and "Fs
Their Prout," that clerical fellow, fasf
ioning fun in his tragic mind as h
walks the southern side-Prout, VIII
is to die a journalist in Paris, an
to return to his first capital with hi
last joke achieved, forty canons an
curates singing requiem to all hi
tears in St. Patrick's Church, on tn
Glanmire road; and Hogan, Their,
that handsome carver, who left a |,
minOus Christ in cofiined stone in tn
South Chapel across the river-Ht
gan going over Parliament Bridge i