Kenmare House, Killarney
Kenmare House, Killarney
Kenmare House has one hundred and nine rooms. The grand reception salon is 135 feet in length and 42 feet in width, with a deep recessed fireplace and a massive oak mantel; the library is 48 by 42 feet, the state dining-room 52 by 30 feet, the drawing-room 36 by 24 feet, the smoking-room 25 by 17 feet, the family dining-room 21 by 16 feet, the earl’s study 24 by 16 feet, her ladyship’s boudoir 18 by 30 feet, the state bedroom 33 by 24 feet, and nine other state apartments of similar dimensions. There are sixteen family bedrooms, each with a bath attached, on the second floor, and twenty-six double and single bedrooms on the third floor, with a bachelor’s wing of fifteen rooms entirely separate from the rest of the house and reached by a long corridor. There is a nursery and schoolroom 36 by 18 feet, a servants’ hall 30 by 20 feet, and fifteen bedrooms for servants. Altogether there are eighty living-rooms, amply furnished, besides the kitchens, bakery, storerooms, pantries, and servants’ quarters. There is a garage, and stabling for seventeen horses, a dairy, a fish hatchery which stocks the brooks with trout and the lakes with salmon; seven thousand acres of forest preserve with deer and other game, and, altogether, more than one hundred thousand acres of shooting upon the hills and mountains, the bogs and forests surrounding the Lakes of Killarney. In 1907 the game bag included 2,500 rabbits, 470 pheasants, 400 woodcock, 200 grouse, 150 hares, 100 snipe, and 40 teal ducks, 14 stags, 6 hinds, and 4 does. No account was taken of the trout and the salmon which abound in the lake and in the several rivers and brooks which feed it. It is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and attractive estates in all the United Kingdom.
The fishing is very good in the spring. An Englishman at our hotel brought in several beautiful ten and twelve pound salmon, which he caught with a fly, although it was warm weather and the poorest time of year for the fishing. His lordship charges a fee of five dollars for the privilege of fishingin his lake. That pays for a license of one year, but is not transferable. A transient guest at a hotel, however, can go out with licensed fishermen as often as he likes. In the spring, when the salmon are running, nets are used, and his lordship gets the proceeds of the catch. The fish are shipped to Dublin and London, and the returns are $3,000 and $4,000 a year. His lordship allows none but rowboats upon the lakes. He will not permit a steamer or motor launch or even a naphtha launch, and every one who has a boat has to take out a license, for which he collects ten shillings. But the boatmen make it up during the tourist season.
The Earl of Kenmare will share his blessings, so far as his park is concerned, with you or any one else for a sixpence, and they are well worth it. I do not know any place where a lover of nature or one who is fond of strolling through the woods can get as much for his money. The demesne or park contains about nineteen hundred acres of forest and garden with many miles of walks and drives. The lodgekeepers at every one of the six gates are always alert to collect the sixpence and give you a ticket, numbered and stamped and good for that day only. But you can pass the gates with it as often as you like until they are closed at night, and a wise man will spend as much time as he can spare within the demesne every day. When we were there in June the trees were glorious; hundreds of acres of rhododendrons were in flower and made great banks of purple blossoms; the hawthorns, arbutus, laburnums, and other flowering trees and the woodbine were in their greatest glory. And when they fade we can admire the oaks and beeches that have been growing there for hundreds of years. Many of the trees were planted after designs. There are long avenues that are completely roofed by boughs, and at one place a magnificent cathedral of beeches has been devised of foliage, three wide aisles made by five rows of venerable beech trees more than three hundred years old, which were trimmed almost to the top when young and the branches trained to overlap so that they are almost a rain-proof roof. The trunks are smooth and almost straight, like the columns of a basilica, and theground is covered with half decayed shells of beech nuts that have fallen during the centuries.
But the most glorious part of the demesne is the garden, which surpasses any that I have seen for years. It occupies a terrace surrounding Kenmare House upon the highest eminence in the demesne and overlooks the lakes. It is laid out in the Italian style, and the gardener told us that it was designed by the Dowager Lady Kenmare when she was a bride. If that is true her ladyship must have been a very clever landscape gardener. The most striking feature is a tennis court inclosed within a hedge of cypress ten feet high and six feet thick, with the top trimmed to represent the wall of a castle, with arches for entrances and bays and recesses where benches have been placed to accommodate spectators. This unique wall of cypress is so dense that a tennis ball will rebound from it. Adjoining the tennis court is a croquet ground, and just behind them an exquisite little cottage where her ladyship serves tea every summer afternoon to her guests.
I was told that no other garden in Ireland compares with this, and the only ones that approach it are those of the Duke of Devonshire at Lismore and the Duke of Ormonde at Kilkenny. Although those at Versailles and Fontainebleau are much more extensive, they are not so artistic.
The Lakes of Killarney are three in number and, strangely enough, have no romantic names. They really are only one lake, the Lower, Upper, and Middle lakes being connected by narrow channels only a few yards long. The three are thirty miles in circumference and the extreme end of Upper Lake is eleven miles from the extreme end of Lower Lake. The Lower Lake is the largest, being about five and a half miles long and two and a half miles wide at the widest place; Middle Lake and Upper Lake are each about two miles long at the greatest length and about three-quarters of a mile wide at the widest point. They all contain numerous islands of different sizes. Somebody has counted them, and I think has found sixty-five, large and small. One of them, Innisfallen Island, was occupied by a monastery back in St. Patrick’s time, and the famous“Annals of Innisfallen,” one of the earliest and most authentic of the ancient Irish histories, was written there by the monks, who began the manuscript at least twelve hundred years ago. The original is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and is one of the most valuable manuscripts in the world, with fifty-seven leaves, closely covered with beautiful penmanship. The earlier portion consists of extracts from the Old Testament and a history of the world down to the arrival of St. Patrick in 432. From that time it treats exclusively of Irish affairs, terminating with the year 1319. It is evidently a record of certain facts which came to the knowledge of the monks of Innisfallen Abbey during a period of nearly seven hundred years until, in 1320, the abbey was plundered and the monks massacred by Maolduin O’Donaghue and the MacCarthys. It has since remained in ruins, a few broken walls covered with ivy, which are visited regularly by Augustinian brothers who come here on pilgrimages.
The lakes are surrounded almost entirely by a range of mountains, except on the north, where they break into low hills. There are six peaks rising over two thousand feet, including Carran-Tuel (3,314 feet), the highest mountain in Ireland; Mangerton (2,756 feet), Purple Mountain (2,739), Devil’s Punch Bowl (2,665), Toomies (2,500), and Torc (2,100). There are several other mountains which approach these in height, forming a mighty barrier between County Cork and County Kerry, and protecting Killarney from the cold southwest winds of the ocean. The Devil’s Punch Bowl is an extinct volcano, and gets its name from an enormous crater near its summit which is filled with water and fed from subterranean springs. There is no bottom so far as people have been able to discover. The crater reaches down into the bowels of the earth somewhere and furnishes an inexhaustible reservoir of pure, cold water, which is now piped down to the village of Killarney.
Upper Lake, Killarney.
Upper Lake, Killarney.
By a curious freak of nature these mountains are all detached and separated by narrow valleys and gorges, although at a distance they seem to be in a cluster. The passes arewatered with streams that fall over precipitous rocks and form numerous cascades. We came through one of them on our way from Glengariff, and nearly all the others have hard, smooth roads which are utilized for excursions on coaches, and in jaunting cars. Some of them are impassable except on horseback. They furnish delightful diversions for tourists and people who are spending the summer at the hotels, and give a good opportunity to see the scenery and Irish life. The excursion system is well organized. It is only necessary to buy a ticket and to “follow the man from Cook’s.” There are many short drives also and visits can be made to the islands by rowboats. There are several romantic old castles and the Earl of Kenmare has built tea houses at different points which are greatly appreciated.
There is no more delightful place in the world for rest and mild forms of enjoyment, but sporty people will find Killarney “beastly dull.” It is not in the least bit exciting; there is no dressing and there is no dancing, and some of the hotels are without barrooms. The most thrilling excitement is found in tennis, golf, fishing, walking, driving, and listening to a phonograph in the evening. There is an active rivalry between the worshipers of the Scotch and the English lakes and the admirers of the Lakes of Killarney. They all have a certain resemblance, and the latter are like Alpine lakes in miniature—not so much mountain, not so much water, but a similar canopy of blue sky and green settings. The mountains were grouped by a competent Artist and are embroidered and fringed with foliage, but are bare as a bone on their slopes and peaks. They are good for nothing but scenery. The grass is so scarce that it doesn’t pay to pasture cattle over them, and a goat would have nervous prostration from loneliness. There are said to be plenty of deer, but that is doubtful.
But as features of a picture the mountains around Killarney, with their shifting lights and shadows as the sun rises and declines, are exquisite pictures. They appear at their best when the sun goes down and the mist rises and softens their outlines. The lingering twilight leaves deep shadows of purpleand blue, and every evening we sit on a bench in the hotel garden and watch them fade away like a scene in a theater when curtains of gauze are dropped one after another.
The vivid Irish imagination has furnished a volume of legends and superstitions about the lakes. Some of them have been handed down from the earliest generations. These attractions drew to them the lovers of the beautiful ages ago and they were originally known as “The Lakes of Learning,” because at one time there were three monasteries there, attended by multitudes of students from all over the world. They have been a favorite theme of all the Irish poets, and the scene of innumerable romances. The legends, which account for the origin of the lakes, are not consistent. Some one neglected to close the entrance to an enchanted fountain in the mountains, which caused a flood and covered fair and fertile fields and splendid palaces with water. One of the ancestors of the O’Donaghues, who originally owned all the water and all the mountains, as the Earl of Kenmare does at present, full of skepticism and wine, defied the gods, who threatened destruction if a stone from a certain sacred well should be disturbed. With the bravado that was characteristic of his descendants, he carried the stone to his castle. When the people heard of this impiety they fled to a neighboring mountain, and in the morning when the sun rose they looked down and saw that the valley in which their homes had been was covered with water.
The O’Donaghue is the hero of most of the legends. He is identified with almost every island and with almost every glen. The legends all agree that the men and women who inhabited the lovely valley did not perish with him, but The O’Donaghue lives at the bottom of the lake in a gorgeous palace, surrounded by congenial friends and enjoys feasting and folly as much as he did before the flood. Every seven years in the summer he comes to the surface, and makes a journey from one end of the lakes to the other, riding a splendid white stallion, in an armor of gold and a helmet that glitters with diamonds. He gallops through the town andaround the mountains just as he did when he was the lord of the land, and will continue to do so until the silver shoes on the hoofs of his stallion are worn out. Blessings are showered upon every one who is fortunate enough to see him. If a girl can catch a glimpse of this brilliant knight as he makes his midnight journey she is sure to be married before the end of the year.
O’Donaghue’s horse, his prison, his stable, his library, his cellar, his pulpit, his table, his broom, and various other things that belonged to him are pointed out among the rocks upon the islands of the shore. Every freak of nature has some association with him.
Scores of peasants may be found who have actually seen him, and half the population believe in his seven-year visits. Many curious stories of which O’Donaghue is the hero have been invented in the generations that have passed by imaginative mothers to entertain their children. When I asked a thoughtful jaunting car driver if he believed in the periodical appearance of the ancient lord of the lake, he answered:
“Wall, I dunno’, I dunno’; me mither tould me the tale wid her own blessed lips; me wife has tould it jist the same to our own children, and I am shure The O’Donaghue isn’t in Killarney the rist of the toime, and why shouldn’t he have the pleasure of comin’ for one noight?”
St. Patrick never came to Killarney, but the legend is that he climbed up to the top of the tallest mountain, stretched out his hands over the lakes and said: “I bless all beyint the reeks” (mountains).
Fin MacCool kept his tubs of gold in the lake near Muckross Abbey and his dog Bran watched them. “One day a brute of an Englishman, an’ a great diver intirely, came over to git the goold, and when he wint down into the wather the dog Bran sazed him by the trousers and shook the life out of him until he died, and his ghost has been wanderin’ around there ivir sence.”
The shore of the lake under the windows of Ross Castle is strewn with curious-looking flat stones. They are the booksof his library which The O’Donaghue threw out of the window when he was mad one day, and they turned to rocks.
When The O’Donaghue was a slip of a boy and was sitting in front of the castle an old woman came running along shrieking that the O’Sullivans had come through the pass from County Cork and were stealing the cattle. “The O’Donaghue, thin only thirteen years old, bedad, seizes an oulde sword and kills every mother’s son of the thaving blaggards, an’ sticks their bodies up agin the wall as a warning to all the ruffians of the clans beyant the mountains.
“When The O’Donaghue was a young man and went into his first battle he slew six hundred of his enemies in a single day. He fought so long and became so tired that his legs and arms would have fallen off his body if they hadn’t been held together by his armor.
“One day when Ossian, the poet, came to Killarney he met an old priest trying to carry a sack of corn on his back. Ossian relieved him of the burden. The priest called on the Holy Virgin to bless him, whereupon Ossian said, ‘I help you because you are an old man and not for the sake of virgins or married women or widdies,’ for Ossian was a hathen and he didn’t know any better, an’ how could he know what the holy father meant when he sphoke of the Blessed Virgin? But, nevertheless, the curse was on him, and in a minute he was an ould shrivelled, crippled crater, a dale oulder than the priest whose sack of corn he was carrying. And all this for takin’ the name of Blessed Virgin in vain, and not knowing any better. But the priest, with a few words of prayer, relaved the enchantment and converted Ossian to Christianity on the sphot.”
Ross Castle, Killarney
Ross Castle, Killarney
Ross Castle was the stronghold of the O’Donaghues. It was built somewhere about the twelfth century by the celebrated Hugh O’Donaghue, who lives in the lake and rides about the country every seven years. It is an historic fact that he lived there once, although the legends that are told of him go back for centuries before its foundation. There is a massive tower or keep, about one hundred feet high and one hundred feet square, “and ivy clasps the fissured stones with its entwining arms.” The walls of the tower are almost perfect. There is a long extension, however, entirely in ruins, but it gives an idea of the enormous dimensions of the castle. It was surrounded by outworks of great strength, and you can see traces of the round watch towers at the angles. A stone staircase leads to the top of the tower, where a beautiful view of the country can be obtained. Few ruins in Ireland are so extensive and so well kept.
Everybody has to pay a sixpence to see Ross Castle, and the money goes into the empty pocket of the Earl of Kenmare. You have to pay to see everything in this country, however, and sometimes the petty hotel charges are exasperating. They are insignificant, but everything goes in the bill; every time you draw a breath or ask a question it costs twopence. If the hotel managers would make a straight rate per day to cover all these trifles they would make a great deal more money and save a great deal of temper. The only free ruins are those of the ancient Abbey of Agahadoe, which occupy a conspicuous site on the ridge back of the town where they were built in the eighth century by Finian, the leper saint.
Ross Castle has withstood many a siege in its time, but was finally captured, dismantled, and left in its present condition during the civil war in 1652. It was attacked by General Ludlow with an army of four thousand footmen and two hundred horse, and defended by The O’Donaghue of that time. Finding it impregnable by land, Ludlow left a portion of his force to hold it in a state of siege, while he retired to Castlemaine and built a fleet of boats with which he made an attack by water. There was an ancient proverb that “Ross Castle will never fall until ships float in the Lake of Killarney,” hence, the garrison remembered that saying when they saw Ludlow’s flotilla approaching, and were so demoralized by the superstition that they abandoned it and laid down their arms. It was the last of the O’Donaghues. Their power and glory have never been regained.
The village of Killarney is unattractive and untidy, but itis a busy place. One doesn’t understand why in a country where there is so much room to spare, the villages should not be made up of detached cottages with gardens and lawns, hedges and shade trees, instead of sections of solid blocks that look as if they had been cut out of the tenement house districts of crowded cities. Killarney is a solid mass of brick and mortar, with stuccoed fronts, painted a dingy yellow, without the slightest thing to relieve the monotony until you suddenly pass the last house and the green fields begin.
It is a great tourist center, and there are a dozen hotels and boarding-houses of different pretensions and prices. There are “licensed houses” and “unlicensed houses” and some of them are licensed for seven days in a week, which means that the proprietor has permission to sell whisky and beer from two to five o’clock on the Sabbath day. Cook’s excursion parties come in like swarms of bees, buzzing around the hotels and shops where laces and other curiosities are for sale and carry off loads of queer things as souvenirs. They breakfast at seven o’clock in the morning and are piled into great four-horse coaches by nine and start off on excursions with their luncheons in baskets under the seats. They return at sunset completely tired out, but the next morning are off for Dublin or Glengariff. It is about as hard work to travel with an excursion party as anything I know of, for every moment must be economized and everybody feels under obligations to see everything.
Killarney is quite an educational center also. There are several popular schools there and several monasteries. The Franciscans conduct a theological seminary and the Christian Brothers have a college in connection with the cathedral. There are two or three convents where young ladies are educated, and a large institution in which two hundred and ten girls are being taught by the nuns to make lace, which is one of the most profitable occupations an Irish woman can engage in. And they have a School of Housewifery, conducted by the British government under the supervision of the minister of agriculture at Dublin. Paternalism is carried farther inIreland than in Switzerland, Germany, or any other place I know of, as you will admit when you hear that twenty-three rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed mavourneens are being educated at the expense of the taxpayers as domestic servants. They are rescued from the filthy cabins in the mountains, washed, and clothed in neat liveries, natty little muslin caps are pinned to their raven tresses, frilled muslin aprons are fastened to their frocks, and they are taught how to wash dishes and cook and make beds and do plain sewing, and dust the bric-a-brac in the drawing-room and say, “Yes, me lady,” and “Yes, me lord,” and courtesy when they are spoken to. They learn to mend and embroider, to do up hair, to fasten dresses and other duties pertaining to the jurisdiction of a lady’s maid, and, after a year or so of this training, they are found positions in the households of the nobility, where they will spend their lives as servants and marry a footman or a gamekeeper, as will their children and grandchildren generations to come after them, because domestic service is a profession in Great Britain, and is followed by families who are trained for their work.
This school is a great thing for the Irish girls in the mountain cabins, whose lives might otherwise be hopelessly sunk in squalor and filth that seem to be inseparable from the peasant population. I have never been able to find anybody to explain why an Irish farmer piles his manure in front of the only door to his cabin. It is an habitual subject of witticism, just as it is in Switzerland, where similar customs prevail, but with thousands of acres of bare ground all around the cabin, it would seem that some other place might be found.
It occurred to me, too, as I was going through the School of Housewifery, that our government might do worse than establish similar schools in the Southern States for training colored girls in the same way, but I suppose the Supreme Court would pronounce such a scheme unconstitutional.
A house by the roadside now occupied by a farmer named McSweeny is pointed out as the birthplace of Robert Emmet.
Lord Kitchener was born about nineteen miles from here, atCrotto House, Tralee, where his father and mother were stopping for the summer. His father was a colonel in the army and was on leave from his regiment at the time of Kitchener’s birth.
The great Daniel O’Connell was also born in the neighborhood, and his nephew, Sir Maurice O’Connell, lives in a stately mansion that overlooks the lower lake in the middle of a beautiful grove.
Muckross Abbey ranks with Melrose Abbey in Scotland and Kenilworth Castle in England as among the most picturesque and interesting ruins in the world. The walls and the Gothic windows, the tower and several other distinctive features are well preserved, and the ivy drapery makes it an exquisite picture. The abbey stands within the park of two hundred and ninety acres that surrounds Muckross House and is the property of Lord Ardilaun, who has many beautiful places in different parts of Ireland, and cannot possibly enjoy them all; but none is so beautiful as Muckross House.
Muckross Abbey, Killarney
Muckross Abbey, Killarney
He purchased the property of the Herbert family who inherited it from Florence MacCarthy More, who, in 1750 married Agnes, daughter of Edward Herbert of this county, and they had one son who was the last MacCarthy More in the direct line, and that famous family became extinct, for he died without issue in 1770, and the estate passed into the possession of his mother’s family, being the nearest relatives. The Honorable Arthur Herbert died in 1866, and a beautiful Celtic cross has been erected to his memory upon the highest hill in the neighborhood, overlooking the park that he prized so highly, and where he enjoyed so much pleasure. His widow and daughters lived there for thirty years until they expired, when the place was offered at auction and Lord Ardilaun bid it in for £63,000 for the estate, and paid £10,000 more for furniture, pictures, live stock, and other property, making it cost him altogether about £73,000. And now he offers it for sale—the whole thing, a house of thirty-two rooms, a park of two hundred and ninety acres, the ruins of Muckross Abbey, and history and legends galore—for £75,000.And perhaps he would take less from the proper person. In 1907 a syndicate was organized to purchase the place and turn it into a Monte Carlo. They proposed to make the handsome old mansion a gambling-house and erect a large hotel with all possible allurements near by; but when Lord Ardilaun learned of the scheme, he instructed his solicitors to insert in the deed a clause stipulating that it should be used for residential purposes only, and that made it worthless to the syndicate. So Muckross Abbey and its beautiful surroundings are still in the market.
The abbey dates back to the dawn of Christianity in Ireland, and its site was originally occupied in the fourth or fifth century by a monastery founded by St. Finian of Innisfallen and his monks. The present building, however, was erected by Donald MacCarthy More, Prince of Desmond, in 1330, and was finished by his son in 1340 for the Franciscan friars, who occupied it as a monastery and as a college. There was some kind of an institution on the same site between the monastery of St. Finian and the present one, for an ancient manuscript in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, gives an account of its destruction by fire in the eleventh century. The founder, Donald MacCarthy More, built the beautiful chapel as a burial place for himself and his posterity. It is also the burial place of the O’Donaghues of the Glens, and in the very center of the choir is a large square tomb in which was deposited the body of “The Great O’Donaghue,” the chieftain of the lakes, of whom Mr. Maurice R. Moriarity, the custodian, gives many interesting legends in his history of the ruins.
The O’Donaghues were connected by marriage with the MacCarthys, kings of Munster, and had their headquarters at Blarney Castle, near Cork. Twelve generations, so far as the inscriptions can be deciphered, of that proud family are lying there, and more than twenty generations of O’Donaghues. The last MacCarthy buried here was Florence, husband of Agnes Herbert, who lived in Muckross House until his death in 1770. The last O’Donaghue buried here wasDonal, a direct descendant of The O’Donaghue of the Glens, who was a member of parliament and died in 1889. His son Jeffrey, “The O’Donaghue,” as the head of the family is always called, is a barrister living in Dublin, a gentleman of high reputation and much influence, although he has lost almost everything but his proud name and a lineage that is interwoven with the history of Ireland since human actions were recorded.
The grandfather of “The O’Donaghue” was a captain in the Munster Fusiliers, which were recruited in County Kerry and was stationed at Chester, near Liverpool, the home of Gladstone, in 1860, during a religious agitation. A band of rioters were making ready to burn an effigy of the pope when Captain O’Donaghue warned the leaders that if such an insult to the holy father was offered the Kerry men of his regiment would burn the city of Chester to the ground. When this threat became known the mob dispersed, and there were no more religious demonstrations while Captain O’Donaghue and the men of Kerry were in the Chester barracks.
“The O’Donaghues were ginerally prayin’ when they woren’t foightin’ or dhrinkin’,” said the ancient oracle who gave me this information. “They feared none but God, and since Maolduin O’Donaghue burned the monastery of Innisfallen and murdered the monks in 1158 they have spint much toime doin’ pinnance for his sins.”
It is customary for the heads of these old families to use the word “The” as a prefix to their names to indicate their rank, and I have seen letters signed in that way, without the initials of the writer. For example, “The MacDermott” is a barrister of importance in Dublin. “The O’Donivan” lives at Cork and retains a part of the ancestral estates. “The O’Shea” is a clergyman of the Church of England stationed at Manchester and makes much of his position as the head of the clan. “The O’Neill” is the Lord of Londonderry, and “The O’Connor” lives at Sligo—a brother of the late Sir Nicholas O’Connor, who was British ambassador at Constantinople at the time of his death. “The O’Flaherty” is ajustice of the peace near Galway, and a man of importance. And members of other old families recognize the head of their clan in a similar manner, although it carries nothing but glory and gratification with it.
“The O’Sullivans, the MacCarthys, and all the old families loike the O’Donaghues, are gone; played out, as ye moight say,” remarked the oracle. “For tin cinturies the O’Sullivans ruled whole counties in Ireland, but they have lost their proid as well as their property, and are now contint to kape pooblic houses [saloons] and sit around complaining of the hard toimes. The whole country south of here is full of O’Sullivans. There’s more of thim than of any other name. If anny wan were to sail across County Kerry in a balloon and cast out a bag of corn, ivery kernel would hit an O’Sullivan, but they are only proivates in the clan. The ruling line is extinct and no O’Sullivan now owns an acre of the old estates. Nor do the O’Donaghues; they’re as poor as church mice, having lost all but the name and the spirit of the race.
“Look at that grave there; it’s filled with the bones of Black Jeffery O’Donaghue. They called him the Black Prince of the Glenflesk. He lived at Killaha Castle, situated five moiles from here and built on a rock standin’ in the middle of a bog, and nobody could find the way but those who knew it. His spirit nothing could contain. He hated the English as no man ever hated thim before or since, and whin he saw an Englishman his temper would rise like the hair on the back of an angry dog. No Englishman ever came within soight of Killaha Castle and got home aloive. But Black Jeffery died in his bed after all, of tuberculosis; ye kin see the date on the tomb—1756, age 36.
“Did yez ivir hear about the midnight marriage of the master of Blarney Castle which took place here in the ruined abbey in the year 1590, which Quane Elizabeth an’ the intire parlymint did their best to prevint? It’s a great story. The heads of the two branches of the MacCarthy family were thin united in the persons of Florence MacCarthy of Blarney Castle, the same gintleman that deludered Quane Elizabethwith his soft words and caused the invintion of the word ‘blarney’ that is used so much these days. Waal, he was in love with Aileen MacCarthy, his cousin, daughter of Donal MacCarthy Mor, Earl of Glencare. The two factions had been inemies, and it was the policy of the English to kape thim apart, because a reconciliation would bring them togither an’ make thim more dangerous to British authority. And that was what Quane Elizabeth was trying to prevint. She feared that if the MacCarthy factions made frinds they would join Hugh O’Neill and the great Earl of Desmond, thin in rebellion, and so the marriage was forbidden by her majesty. An’ that made Florence MacCarthy all the more determined to wed Aileen, who had been his sweetheart in sacrit for several years, and one day he crossed the lake wid Lady Aileen and her mother in a boat rowed by four lusty gallowglasses with their battle-axes lyin’ where the oars had been.
“They landed at midnight at the abbey, thin half in ruins, solemn and mournful, in silence and decay. The moon shone through the roofless walls and the broken windows of the crumbling shrine of Irrelagh, upon the blissed head of a vinerable friar, Florence MacCarthy’s chaplain, who was awaiting thim himself—one of thim who, in the dark days of Henry VIII. was expelled from the abbey at the point of a Protestant sword. Wid him was O’Sullivan Mor, MacFinian, the Countess of Glencare, and the beautiful Lady Una O’Leary, and that was all. No bard was there to sing the bridal song, no harp to give swate sounds, no banner to wave, no clansmen to raise a joyous cheer, an’ no spear or battle-ax gleamed in the moonlight, but the Blissed Virgin and all the saints were lookin’ down all the while, approvin’, through the roofless aisles, when Florence MacCarthy and Aileen MacCarthy pledged their vows.
A Window of Muckross Abbey, Killarney
A Window of Muckross Abbey, Killarney
“This sacred marriage was proclaimed an act of treason by Quane Elizabeth, and for that Florence MacCarthy went to the Tower, but he got the bist of it after all.”
The windows of Muckross Abbey are the most perfect of any ruin in Ireland, and the moldings of several of the doorways are in a fine state of preservation, so that the carving can be carefully studied. There is a cloister thirty-three feet square, encircled by a vaulted corridor seven feet wide and lighted by twenty-two arched windows, which is as good as if it were built yesterday. And in the center of the quadrangle is a venerable yew tree, said to be the largest in the world, having been planted by the monks at the foundation of the abbey in 1340. It was usual, so I am told, for Franciscan monks to plant yew trees in the courtyards of their monasteries, and they are found frequently in ruins. The trunk of this tree is smooth and straight to a height of twenty feet, and is about twelve feet in circumference at the base. The branches spread over the inclosing walls like an umbrella and darken the entire quadrangle, which never had any other roof.
Several legends are woven around this majestic tree which, in the eyes and hearts of the people of Killarney, is an object of great veneration. If any one should injure it, even by breaking off a twig, he would excite popular indignation. They believe that such sacrilege will be punished by the death of the guilty person within a year, and it is a remarkable coincidence that such things have occurred several times.
The kitchen, the refectory, the chapter-rooms, and several other apartments are in an excellent state of preservation and are well cared for, but the cells of the dormitory have almost disappeared. The tower stands as it was five hundred years ago, but is an empty shell, having no roof, flooring, or staircase, and visitors are prohibited from climbing the walls.
Some of the graves are quite modern. Muckross Abbey is still open for the burial of members of four families, who have ancient rights. The latest grave was made in 1902. Several of the epitaphs are quite interesting, particularly those which bear testimony to the virtues and the happiness and usefulness of the women of the O’Donaghue and MacCarthy families. For example, one of them describes a beloved wife, “who, in her progress through life, fulfilled all its duties with uniform and exemplary prudence, whose respectful love as a daughter, whose affectionate kindness as a sister, whosefond and provident care as a mother, and whose endearing tenderness as a wife, were eminently conspicuous. Combining the discharge of social obligations with piety, edifying yet unobtrusive, she lived and died a Christian. To rescue her memory from oblivion, to preserve a remembrance of her virtues for the instruction and imitation of the young, this stone is erected by her disconsolate husband.”
If you want a description of Muckross Abbey that is worth reading you will find it in the works of Sir Walter Scott, who was there in 1825, and if you are pleased with that, and would like a little more of the same sort, read Lord Macaulay’s account of his visit in 1849; in which he says that one of the boatmen on Lake Killarney “gloried in having rowed Sir Walter Scott and Maria Edgeworth about the lake when they were here twenty-four years ago, and said it was a compensation to him for having missed a hanging which took place in the village that very day.”
There is a great deal of drunkenness in Ireland. There is more in Dublin than anywhere else, but not so much as in Scotland. In Ireland a saloon is called “a public house” and a saloon-keeper is called a publican. All liquor selling is done under licenses granted by the justices of the peace upon petitions signed by the people of the community in which the saloon is to be located. There is no limit to the number of licenses; and there seems to be no particular rule about granting them, except that the fee of one pound must be paid annually. A license once granted is perpetual as long as the annual fee is paid and the police do not show cause why it should be revoked. Licenses are held chiefly by ordinary merchants, at what we would call country stores, by the wayside, at “four corners,” where the peasants go to trade, and along highways frequented by teamsters, jaunting cars, bicyclers, and other people with vehicles. The publican usually puts a watering trough in front of his place, and thus affords refreshment for man and beast. In most of the rural districts licenses are held in families and handed down from generation to generation of storekeepers, who keep bottles on the shelves and manage to sell enough liquor to pay the fees. If the business is sold or inherited the license goes with the place, and many have been running for a hundred years or more.
Until recently anyone could get a license by obtaining a few signatures of political influence, but a recent act of parliament prohibits the issue of new licenses except for hotels, genuine clubs, and new villages of a certain population. The effect of this legislation will be to gradually reduce the number ofliquor sellers and prevent the extension of the traffic except as new towns may be started, which is not common in Ireland, as it is in the United States.
In the five principal cities of Ireland, Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, and Waterford, special licenses are necessary, and the fees vary from one pound to sixty pounds per year, according to the amount of business done. There are “six-day licenses” and “seven-day licenses.” The latter permit liquor selling between two and five o’clock on Sunday afternoons and require an additional fee. The Sunday closing law is said to be well enforced throughout all Ireland, but in Dublin crowds of men and women can be seen standing around the “publics” during the open hours on Sunday afternoons.
For the year ending March 31, 1907, a total of 23,835 licenses were issued in Ireland, of which 17,496 were granted to publicans, 2,510 to wholesale dealers, and 1,022 to wholesale grocers who handle wine, beer, and spirits to be consumed off the premises; and 2,807 special licenses were issued for temporary privileges.
The public houses show a slight decrease. Ten years ago, in 1898, there were 17,407 licenses granted for them; in 1900 there were 17,596; in 1903 there were 17,749; in 1905 there were 17,571, and in 1907 there were 17,496, or an average of one to every 250 people. The licenses for the wholesale and grocery traffic also remain about the same.
W.R. Wigham, a Quaker, who is secretary of the Irish Association for the Prevention of Intemperance, told me that there is less private drinking and less habitual drinking in Ireland than is generally supposed. The Irish are a convivial people, but comparatively few men or women drink for the love of the liquor. Most of the drunkenness is seen at the fairs and cattle sales, the festivals and wakes, although the use of liquor at the latter has been forbidden by the bishops and is now much less frequent than formerly.
In England and Scotland drinking is more regular and general for the sake of the stimulant, while an Irishman very seldom drinks alone. In order to lessen intemperance fromconviviality an anti-treating movement was started a few years ago. It was popularly known as “The League of the Lonely Pint,” and for a couple of years was quite successful, but it did not last.
The quantity of spirituous liquors consumed in Ireland is much less than in England or Scotland because the population is less, but the average is greater than in Scotland. Theper capitaconsumption in England for 1906 of alcoholic liquors was 2,090 gallons, in Scotland, 1,430 gallons, and in Ireland 1,614 gallons.
The drink billper capitais less in Ireland. Taking all liquors into the calculation the expenditureper capitafor liquor in England last year was £3 19s.9d., in Scotland £3 3s.1d., and in Ireland £3 2s.10d.
The number of arrests for drunkenness and for crimes and offenses which may be attributed to liquor have been decreasing in Ireland for several years. In 1902 in all Ireland, 80,054 men and 11,163 women, making a total of 91,217, were arrested for drunkenness. In 1906 the figures were 68,656 men and 8,606 women, making a total of 77,262. This is a decrease of 11,398 men and 2,557 women and a total decrease of 13,955 in four years.
In 1902 one person out of forty-eight was arrested for drunkenness in Ireland, in 1906 one in fifty-eight, which is a decided improvement; but think of 8,000 and 11,000 women being arrested for drunkenness!
The number of arrests for assault during the year 1907 in all Ireland was less than ever before, being only 16,055, in comparison with 24,027 in 1896, 22,065 in 1900, and 16,666 in 1904, while the number of persons arrested for disorderly conduct decreased from 90,233 to 77,262 during the same years. There is a terrible side to the picture. Of the women arrested for drunkenness in Ireland last year more than one thousand were under twenty-one years of age, 118 between sixteen and eighteen years of age, while 156 were over sixty.
The Sunday law is pretty well enforced, and during the last year, outside of the five principal cities, 2,289 personswere arrested for its violation. That is about the average for the last ten years.
In Dublin there has been a decided falling off in the arrests for drunkenness on Sunday; the total in 1898 was 1,280, while in 1907 it was only 404. The number of arrests for drunkenness on Sunday in Cork decreased from 265 to 193 during the same period, and those in Belfast from 537 to 434.
In the city of Dublin alone 1,772 women were arrested for drunkenness in 1907 and 2,941 men. In 1904, 1,976 women were arrested for drunkenness.
I don’t suppose there is any city in the world where there is so much drunkenness among women as there is in Dublin, except it be Glasgow and Edinburgh, although the number of drunken men arrested is not so much larger than the average in other cities of Europe and the United States. And what is even more lamentable, the public is so hardened to the repulsive spectacle that it does not attract as much curiosity as the appearance of an ordinary drunken man upon the streets of Chicago or New York. Women stagger from the doors of saloons along the sidewalks with disheveled hair and disordered garments without attracting any attention whatsoever.
The Roman Catholic clergy are doing a great deal to suppress disorder and promote temperance by prohibiting the use of liquor at wakes. Cardinal Logue and the several archbishops and bishops are determined to abolish the disgraceful orgies that have been so common on such occasions, and have forbidden priests to officiate at funerals or even to say masses for the souls of the dead where liquor is offered to the neighbors and mourners who sit up with the corpse. Some of the bishops require the remains to be brought to the church on the day before the funeral. As a consequence, the scandalous custom of holding a carousal the night before the funeral is almost entirely obsolete except in the slums of the large cities and in remote rural districts. As a rule throughout Ireland, where friends now gather to “sit up” with the corpse as a token of respect and sorrow, they are furnished with no stronger refreshments than tea. The teapot is placed uponthe stove or upon the peat fire and the mourners help themselves as they desire; but if a bottle of liquor is passed around it is done with the greatest caution for fear the priest will hear of it.
Like the colored people of the United States, the peasants of Ireland are possessed with an ambition to have “a fine funeral.” Among the poor this form of extravagance has been the cause of a great deal of distress and privation, and formerly poor families often deprived themselves of food to supply liquor that was consumed at the wake. This hospitable custom, however, is rapidly passing away.
The Irish Association for the Prevention of Intemperance is composed of delegates from nearly all of the many temperance societies in Ireland, both Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Nonconformist, and Independent. There are many mutual benefit societies among workingmen which affiliate, and various associations of women and children. For the purpose of co-operation and economy and to avoid friction and duplication of labor, this central organization has been formed, and consists of one representative from every contributing society. The general council meets three times a year, has a complete organization, sends lecturers into the field, issues literature, makes investigations, and has committees to look after legislation that concerns the liquor traffic.
The special work of the council is to secure temperance legislation and the enforcement of laws that are already on the statute books, especially the Sunday closing act and the law which forbids the sale of liquor to minors. Another object is to encourage the formation of temperance clubs throughout the country, to organize opposition to applications for licenses, to promote meetings, to educate the people as to the evils of the liquor traffic, and to create public sentiment against it. It also has committees to encourage the establishment of restaurants at which liquor is not sold, to encourage healthful recreation, and to provide local amusements that will keep the men out of the public houses.
The president of the council is a Roman Catholic barrister;the secretary is a Quaker; the vice-presidents include all of the Roman Catholic and all of the Church of Ireland archbishops and several bishops of both denominations, the president of the Methodist conference, the president of the Maynooth College (Roman Catholic), the provost of Trinity College, the moderator of the Presbyterian general assembly, several earls and other members of the nobility, the leaders of the Irish party in parliament, and several other gentlemen of equal prominence and influence.
“The Church of Ireland has a very strong organization,” said Mr. Wigham, “but, of course, it is not so strong or so extensive as that of the Roman Catholics, because they constitute at least three-fourths of the population of Ireland. The Presbyterians and Methodists are also well organized and have a temperance society in every parish and connected with every chapel. Our central organization is supported by them all, and is entirely nonsectarian, as you will perceive upon examining our list of officers.
“Nearly all the temperance work in Ireland is done by religious organizations, and whatever may be the differences of the denominational leaders over theology and other matters, they are united and harmonious in their opposition to the liquor traffic. I should say that the influence of Maynooth College is greater than that of any other institution. The temperance sentiment under the influence of President Mannix is very strong there, and the students have a society called ‘The Pioneers,’ the members of which take a pledge that they will abstain from all intoxicating liquors during their entire life. No man can join ‘The Pioneers’ until after two years of probation, in order that he may take the vows with his eyes wide open and with plenty of reflection; but more than two-thirds of the priests that come out of that institution are ‘Pioneers.’
“There has been a decided change in the habits of the priesthood of Ireland during the last generation or two. Formerly it was not considered improper, and, indeed, it was customary, for a priest to set out a bottle and a glass for the refreshment of all visitors of importance, and his parishioners would feelvery much mortified if they could not offer similar hospitality to the priest when he came to see them. It was common for a priest to have wine and whisky on his table and to linger with the rest of the guests at a dinner party when the ladies had left the dining-room. But that is the exception nowadays. Those customs are obsolete and most of the priests would as soon think of offering a dose of poison to a parishioner as to hand him a bottle of liquor. The old-fashioned rollicking parson has entirely disappeared from both the Roman Catholic church and the Church of Ireland, and the priesthood is at present composed almost entirely of earnest, devout men, who abstain entirely from liquor and try to promote habits of temperance among their parishioners. A majority of the bishops have forbidden the use of liquor at wakes and will not allow anything stronger than tea on those occasions. A majority of them will not confirm a child that will not take a pledge of total abstinence until it is twenty-one years of age. Some of them put the limit at twenty-five. A great work is also being done by the Jesuits, the Capuchins, and the Franciscans, who have been asked by the bishops recently to co-operate in a great propaganda that is to include the entire island.
“Dr. Walsh, the archbishop of Dublin, and other archbishops, have recently undertaken to secure the closing of all saloons on St. Patrick’s day, and it is proposed to boycott the publicans who keep open doors. Last year Archbishop Walsh published a pastoral in his diocese in which he said, ‘In certain districts, not a few of the licensed houses for the sale of intoxicating drinks are still kept open on that day. This continues to be done, although a number of the proprietors of licensed houses, indeed the majority of them, closed their establishments in honor of the holy festival of our national apostle. In so doing they did their part toward securing the observance of the national holy day that should not be marred by intemperance among the people. It is lamentable that the efforts thus made in so good a cause should be frustrated to a large extent by the selfish actions of those members of the licensed trade who are setting the healthy public opinion of thecity at defiance and seem to make the praiseworthy action of others an occasion of profit to themselves. A vigorous combined effort should be made by the clergy to secure a general closing of licensed houses on St. Patrick’s day.’
“This patriotic action of Dr. Walsh has had a decided effect upon the celebration of St. Patrick’s day,” continued Mr. Wigham, “and it is now more of a religious festival than an occasion for carousing. Several other bishops have taken the same stand with similar results.
“The labor party has also taken an advanced position in favor of temperance legislation,” continued Mr. Wigham. “At the annual meeting of the labor unions last year a resolution was adopted in favor of local option. The resolutions declare that ‘the liquor traffic is a frightful source of poverty, crime, and lunacy,’ and demand a law ‘giving the inhabitants of every locality the right to veto any applications for either the renewal of existing licenses or the granting of new ones, seeing that public houses are generally situated in thickly populated working class districts.‘
“The vote on the adoption of this resolution was 666,000 against 103,000.
“The local option bill now pending before parliament applies to England only,” continued Mr. Wigham. “It does not affect Ireland, but we expect to see the passage of a law prohibiting liquor to be taken from the premises on which it is sold and also forbidding a man to use the wages of his wife and children or to pawn the property of his family for drink.”
“What is the drink bill of Ireland?” I asked, and in reply Mr. Wigham gave me the following table showing the total expenditure and theper capitaexpenditure of the people of Ireland for liquor annually for the last six years:
The consumption of liquors in Ireland last year was as follows:
“The people of Ireland are drinking less spirits,” continued Mr. Wigham, “and more beer. Ten years ago, for example, they consumed 4,713,178 gallons of spirits, which has been reduced to 2,391,595. During the same time the consumption of beer has increased from 2,903,915 barrels to 4,574,263 barrels.
“Last year, by the official statistics, the Guinness brewery in Dublin produced 2,136,629 barrels of beer and other malt liquors, and paid £2,092,000 duty to the government, an average of £3,000 a day. Alsopps Company produced 1,125,178 barrels, another company 887,175 barrels, still another 827,997 barrels; so you see that the manufacture of malt liquors is very large and is increasing. Some people consider this a great improvement, but it is still very harmful, and it is a startling fact that the population of Ireland pay more money for whisky and beer than they pay for rents or for food or for clothing. The total income of the population of Ireland is given at £70,000,000, and, as you have seen from the table I have given you, they spent last year £13,991,314 for intoxicating drinks.”
The Guinness brewery is the largest establishment of the kind in the world. The buildings cover fifty acres of ground; 3,240 men are employed in them, and 10,000 people are dependent upon the wages paid. The brewery was founded in 1759 by an ancestor of the present owner, and did a purely local business until 1825, when the managers began to seek trade in England and Scotland. They undertook to secure a foreign market in 1860. At present the foreign trade is muchlarger than local consumption. Last year the total sales amounted to 76,540,000 gallons, which is an average of nearly two gallonsper capitafor every man, woman, and child in the kingdom. An average of 3,600 barrels of stout are produced daily in one brewery and a new brewery has a capacity of 2,100 barrels daily. The duty paid in 1907 was more than $10,000,000—one-fourteenth of the entire revenue collected on liquor in the United Kingdom. The cold storage capacity of the establishment is 200,000 hogsheads of beer of fifty-two gallons each. One vat will hold 1,700 hogsheads. The main warehouse contains an average of 1,000,000 bushels of malt and similar amounts of other supplies are required. From eight to ten thousand empty casks arrive at the wharf of Guinness & Co. daily, chiefly from London, where all the beer, ale, stout, and porter is sent by steamer in the wood to be bottled, and the fifteen hundred new casks, required each week, are supplied by cooper shops on the premises. The life of a cask averages ten years.
Although there is a deplorable amount of intemperance in Ireland, and according to the estimates of those who have made a study of that subject, at least one-fifth of the earnings of the people are spent for liquor, there is comparatively little crime. If the offenses growing out of the land troubles were deducted the criminal statistics would be very small and Ireland would rank, with Switzerland, Norway, and Denmark, among the most orderly and peaceful countries on the globe.
It may be said also that in comparison with the United States the criminal statistics are very much in favor of Ireland. For example, during the year 1906 there were only four murders in Ireland to eleven in the District of Columbia, and only eleven assaults with dangerous weapons in Ireland to fifty-three in the District of Columbia. During the year 1907 there were eight murders in Ireland and eighteen in the District of Columbia and only seventeen assaults with dangerous weapons in Ireland to fifty-one in the District of Columbia, notwithstanding the difference in population. The populationof Ireland is 4,398,565, and that of the District of Columbia is 317,380.
During the year 1905 there were 9,728 persons indicted for crimes in Ireland; in 1906 the total was 9,465, and in 1907 it was 9,418, or 2.2 per 1,000 of the population. The same ratio is reported for 1897, and the average for the ten years was 2.5 per 1,000.
During the year 1906 there were 372 persons indicted for crime in the District of Columbia, or 1.17 per 1,000 of population, and in 1907 there were 381 indictments, or 1.20 per 1,000.
During the year 1906 there were 4,922 indictments found in Chicago (Cook County), with a population of 2,166,055, or less than one-half that of Ireland, the ratio to population being 2.27 per 1,000. For the year 1907 there were 4,699 indictments found in Chicago, which was 2.16 per 1,000 of the population.
In Ireland, however, at least one-fifth, and usually more of the indictments, are for cattle driving, for attempts to burn crops, hayricks, and stables, for killing and maiming cattle, and for writing threatening letters. The authorities are very severe in their efforts to suppress the land troubles, and sometimes half the population of a village will be indicted for using popular methods of persuasion to compel the large landowners to sell their farms. A great many threatening letters are written, for which there is a heavy penalty, and when some ranchman who has refused to divide up his pastures into farms and sell them to the “landless” finds his fences broken down and his cattle scattered all over the country, every suspected person is indicted for moral effect. There are very few convictions. The people who are engaged in the outrage will not testify against each other and there are no other witnesses.
In Ireland there are very few cases of robbery or burglary. Petty larceny is the principal item in the list of offenses. Grand larceny, embezzlement, forgery, and similar crimes are infrequent.
The largest buildings in the county towns of Ireland areworkhouses, almshouses, and insane asylums, and they are always well filled. I visited an insane asylum at Killarney, which is an enormous building, well arranged and equipped with all modern conveniences, under the direction of Dr. Edward Griffin, and surrounded by a beautiful garden and hedges in the midst of an estate of sixty acres. It was opened in 1852. The number of inmates in 1908 was 619, of whom 299 were women and 320 men. During the last six or seven years the number of women has largely increased. The average age of the inmates is about thirty years. There are more young men than old men in the institution. Dr. Griffin told me that many causes lead to insanity. Whisky, however, has little to do with the condition of the inmates. In 1907 only five men and two women were there for that cause. Tea has a large number of victims, destroying the nervous system by excessive use. The largest proportion come from the country districts, especially from the seacoast, comparatively few from the towns and cities. The greatest number are of the farming and laboring classes, who made up three-fourths of the inmates received last year—common laborers and poor farmers with two acres of land and two cows. Those from certain districts are generally related, predisposition to insanity being manifest in many families. The farming class, coming from the moors and mountains with their barren soil and great privations, are inclined to insanity because of their impoverished conditions of life. Their only food is often tea, bread, and tobacco. The first treatment at the asylum is to give them plenty of nourishing food and build them up. They are furnished meat every day except Friday. Religious delusions have disturbed the minds of many who fear that they are damned forever and cannot enter heaven. They are hard to cure and the slowest of recovery. The influence of the chaplain in these cases is most beneficial. Under his ministration they receive temporary consolation, but after he has left they often relapse into their former melancholy.
The principal cause of insanity among those who come from the barren moors and desolate mountains is not so much theirisolated condition or impoverished life, but their strange delusions. The mountain peasants are very superstitious and imaginative. They believe in fairies and bogies and hear strange voices in the air around them. They believe in leprecawns, which are little men that come out of the ground. They imagine that the fairies and goblins can come through the key-holes of their rooms in the asylum; they are ever hearing strange voices and seeing strange specters as they did upon the moors and mountains.
Of both men and women now in the institution at Killarney more than two hundred have come back to Ireland after a sojourn in America. The superintendent says that the dissipations and excitement of their experience in the United States have caused their mental breakdown after the quiet life and habits of the early days in Ireland. But hereditary predisposition exists in almost every case and in time would have caused the same affliction even though they had remained at home. Hereditary influence and generations of poverty and privation are the general causes of insanity. Very few recoveries are found among those who have been born of insane parents. Most of those dismissed are soon back again, broken down as before by poor nourishment, poverty, and want. The number of readmissions is very large. There are two chaplains, one of whom is Rev. Mr. Madden of the Protestant Church of Ireland. There are very few Protestant patients, however, only twenty being in the asylum at present, the population of the district being largely Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic chaplain, Rev. D. O’Connor, is in constant attendance.