CHAPTER XVII

WICKLOW, THE GARDEN OF IRELAND

Afterdinner that day we bade our friends farewell. Mr. and Mrs. O’Neill were urgent in their invitation that we visit them again.

“Good-bye,” said Edith to Mike. “I am very glad I have met you, and I thank you for the pleasure of flying with you.”

“Do not mention it,” said Mike as he held her hand, “You are such a brave aeronaut that I could fly with you anywhere.”

Edith blushed deeply as Mike’s eyes spoke as well as his tongue.

After we had ascended in the air, Mike circled around, like a carrier pigeon, and then sped off toward the south.

As we entered County Wicklow, we left the seacoast and crossed Wicklow about the middle of the County, passing over the Wicklow hills.

This was the most exciting part of our entire trip.

Wicklow has been called a miniature Switzerland, and it well deserves the name. There are over twenty mountains in this small space that exceed 2000 feet in height, and as they rise abruptly from the level, they seem even higher.

Scattered among these hills, there are beautiful valleys,magnificent mansions, villas, farms and Irish cottages. Much of the country is thickly wooded. The Woods of Shillelah are in Wicklow. Here the best blackthorn, out of which Ireland’s ancient weapon was made, used to grow, and the weapons were called “Shillelahs” from these woods.

In order to see the grandeur of Wicklow to the best advantage, Mike and I threw discretion to the winds. The motor had been acting so well since we left County Derry, that we had full confidence in it now.

“Let us go over the tops of the mountains,” I said to Mike.

He was glad to do this, and rose until we reached the dizzy height of 2500 feet. I would not advise aeroplanists to seek this altitude until they are thoroughly acclimated to life in the atmosphere.

I had become somewhat hardened to aeroplaning, but as I looked straight down sometimes into a deep valley, half a mile below me, I did not feel altogether at my ease.

The view was magnificent. We passed over the Valley of Glendalough, between the mountains of Coomaderry and Lugduff. In this dark valley, by the side of a lake, St. Kevin lived in an early day. His fear of womankind has been immortalized by Moore. Formerly in this valley there was a crowded city, and a great seat of learning, and many kings are buried in this vicinity.

We saw here the ruins of the Seven Churches, and a Round Tower, said to date back to the 7th century.

As we entered the vale of Avoca, I remarked to Mike that Thomas Moore had touched Ireland with his genius, just as Sir Walter Scott threw a charm over Scotland. The vale of Avoca is best known by Moore’s lines:

“Sweet Vale of Avoca, how calm could I rest,In thy bosom of shade, with friends I love best;Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease,And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.”

“Sweet Vale of Avoca, how calm could I rest,

In thy bosom of shade, with friends I love best;

Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease,

And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.”

Although the scenery through Wicklow was grand, I felt relieved as we quitted our lofty altitude, and sailed nearer the earth over the more prosaic County of Wexford. As Mike lowered the aeroplane within about 100 feet of the land I breathed easier.

Wexford was the home of Dermot McMurragh, who first invited the English into Ireland. The ruins of his castle and his tomb are near Ferns, but Wexford is not particularly proud of McMurragh.

Wexford has been called by an Irishman, “the most agricultural county in Ireland,” and we could well believe it as we swept over its green pastures and cultivated farms.

We sighted the city of Wexford at 4:00 o’clock. As we circled around over the city, I observed its excellent harbor, with a complete breakwater, and also its spacious docks. The city looks like a city in Palestine on account of its narrow streets, but it is a clean, prosperous looking place.

We alit, as usual outside the city, and left our aeroplane for the night in charge of a friendly farmer. We made our escape as quietly as possible from the gathering crowd, and soon found the quiet of a good hotel. The Redmond family, noted Irish leaders, reside in Wexford, and the spirit of the dislike to England is very pronounced.

We saw two magnificent churches called the Twins, on account of their similarity. These show the religious zeal of the people. The business part of the town showed their commercial enterprise.

The Quay is a busy place as steamship lines run to England, and there is much traffic in merchandise between Wexford and England, but there is none in affection.

Before retiring for the night we met an interesting old Irishman, whose whole soul was controlled by hatred of Cromwell and England. He had none of Mr. O’Neill’s charity for ancient wrongs, and, as he told us of Cromwell’s Wexford campaign, we could sympathize with him a good deal. To show us how Ireland regarded Cromwell, he quoted from an Irish poet, a few lines, which ran something like this:

“From Drogheda that man of guiltTo fated Wexford flew,The red blood reeking on his hiltOf hearts to Erin true.He found them there—the young, the old,The maiden and the wife;Their guardians brave in death were cold,Who dared for them in strife.They prayed for mercy, God on highBefore Thy Cross they prayed,And ruthless Cromwell bade them dieTo glut the Saxon blade.”

“From Drogheda that man of guiltTo fated Wexford flew,The red blood reeking on his hiltOf hearts to Erin true.

“From Drogheda that man of guilt

To fated Wexford flew,

The red blood reeking on his hilt

Of hearts to Erin true.

He found them there—the young, the old,The maiden and the wife;Their guardians brave in death were cold,Who dared for them in strife.

He found them there—the young, the old,

The maiden and the wife;

Their guardians brave in death were cold,

Who dared for them in strife.

They prayed for mercy, God on highBefore Thy Cross they prayed,And ruthless Cromwell bade them dieTo glut the Saxon blade.”

They prayed for mercy, God on high

Before Thy Cross they prayed,

And ruthless Cromwell bade them die

To glut the Saxon blade.”

IRISH VILLAGE

After a while we turned the old patriot’s attention to America, and we found he had a deep interest in the New World. “It’s God’s country over there,” he told us. We found he had friends in America, and he gave us a ludicrous verse in which some Irishman had described the American character.

“He’d kiss a Queen till he’d raise a blister,With his arms round her neck, and old felt hat onAnd address a King by the name of Mister,And ask him the price of the throne he sat on.”

“He’d kiss a Queen till he’d raise a blister,

With his arms round her neck, and old felt hat on

And address a King by the name of Mister,

And ask him the price of the throne he sat on.”

Mike and I assured him that the Irish poet was too severe on the Yankee.

“Tell us a good Irish story,” I said, before we separated.

“I will that,” he said, and he told us this one.

An excited orator during the American Civil War, exclaimed:

“We have taken Atlanta: we have taken Savannah, Columbus, Charleston, and now at last, have captured Petersburg, and occupy Richmond: and what remains for us to take?”

An Irishman in the crowd shouted: “Let’s take a drink.”

As he closed the story our genial friend pointed towards the bar of the hotel in a significant way, and wesaw the direction of his joke. We declined politely to show our friendship in this way, but we bade him good-night with a warm handshake and best wishes for the good of Ireland.

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