The Isle of the shamrock

Front matter

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Contents

I. The Castle of Eloquence

II. A Medieval Brotherhood

III. The Lakes of Killarney

II List of Illustrations

Page

A Knitter on the Highway

•

Frontispiece

Bogland Haystacks .

.

ix

A Shillalah of the Type known as a "

Kippeen "

xii

Looking on .

.

I

Blarney Castle

.

Picnickers ....

•

Roadside Geese

• lO

One of the Elders of the Monastery

.

1 1

Hanging out the Clothes . . ,

. I

The Monks' Burial Place

•

H

A Schoolroom Corner

.

Coming in from the Fields

.

On a Killarney Street

1 . •

The Upper Lake . . . ,

• •

Muckross Abbey

A Town Byway

List of Illustrations

An Able-bodied Beggar .

A Farmyard Pump .

Browsing on the Bog

A Mountain Peasant Woman and her Creel

Going to Market .

A Dwindling Haystack .

An Upland Cottage .

At the Threshold .

Dispensers of Charity

A Farm in the Golden Vale

By the Kitchen Fireside .

Work in a Potato Field .

Farmyard Ducks

On the Way to Town

Water from the Brook

A Pedler of Distillery Waste

Waiting to be hired

Hungry

The Home of an Irish Writer

Hearthside Comfort in a Bogland Hotel

Drogheda — An Old Town Gate

Carrying Manure to the Fields .

Carding Wool

Spinning with the Great Wheel .

The Haymakers

Covering the Seed in a Field sown to Oats

List of Illustrations

XI

The Usual Substitute for a Baby Carriage

Mowing ....

The Humblest Home in Ireland

Harvest Time

Getting out Peat

An Inspector of Streets

Journeying on Foot

A Country Church .

Making a Hay Rope

A Jaunting Car

A Class in the Schoolyard

The Monks' Fishing House

Cong Marketplace .

Stony Land .

On an Errand

A Weather-proof Stack of Oats

Goats on an Achill Hillslope

The Cathedral Cliffs

Tourists on a Long Car .

A House with a Turf Roof

On the Way to School

A Class in Reading

The Teacher at Home

The Schoolmaster's Wife .

A Hayfield .

Luckawn National Schoolhouse

Page

140 142 144

158 165 169

170 172 179

183 186 190

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List of Illustrations

The Round Tower at Antrim .

The Giant's Causeway .

A Gatherer of Winkles and Limpets

The Kitchen Dresser

Spring Flowers

The Evening Meal at the Cottage Door

Page

234 241 245 252 256 258

Introductory Note

In one of his earlier volumes John Burroughs tells of a Frenchman who visited England with the intention of writing a book about that country. For a long period he continued to observe and collect material. During the first weeks his enthusiasm over his project was unbounded ; a year passed and he still thought of writing a book, but was not so sure about it ; and after a residence of ten years his doubts as to his ability of adequately handhng the subject had so grown that he abandoned the scheme altogether. Mr. Burroughs's comment is that, " instead of furnishing an argument against writing out one's first impressions of a country, the experience of the Frenchman shows the importance of doing it at once. The sensations of the first day are what we want, — the first flush of the traveller's thought and feeling before his perceptions and sensibilities become cloyed or blunted, or before he in any way becomes a part of that which he would describe."

xlv Introductory Note

This defines very forcibly, I think, the source of whatever merit may have been attained by the present volume, or by its predecessors on England and France. The view is from the outside, and has both the faults and virtues of such a view. It is a record of first impressions and of the pleasure in things novel and unexpected which never comes but once. As such I finish it, trusting that I may have succeeded in conveying to others something of the charm and interest that these scenes and incidents had for me.

CLIFTON JOHNSON.

I

T was the first gray of a May morning, and the coasting steamer on which I had taken passage the day before at Plymouth, in southern England, was sliding along up the quiet of the river Lee toward Cork. The air was chilly, and the night mists still lingered in the hollows of the green landscape and floated in filmy wraiths over the surface of the water. All the little steamer's passengers were astir and were watching the scene from ^^ the upper deck. The most inter- "^ ested spectators among us were a score of Irish boys from her Majesty's ship Renown, going home for a month's leave of absence after a two years' cruise In the West Indies. They wore loose, blue uniforms, and flat caps with their ship's name on the bands, and they carried their belongings tied up in colored handkerchiefs or squares of calico. To them the low-lying shores between which our boat was moving were superlatively beautiful. They eagerly picked out familiar points as we passed them, and declared that altogether this was the finest sight they had seen in their lives. When we at length approached the dock, their impatience to land was such that as soon as we came within jumping distance they tossed their little bundles ashore and made flying leaps after them. The officers of the steamer declared the man-of-war lads were as bad as a menagerie of wild animals. Attempts to restrain them were wholly futile, and by the time the gang-plank was in position they had helter-skeltered off up the neighboring streets and alleys and were lost to view.

I followed more leisurely and prosaically, and, after breakfasting, looked about the town. That I was in Ireland was plain from the start, for the brogue andj the peculiar piquancy of the faces were unmistakable. Then there were the women with shawls drawn over their heads, and the numerous beggars, and the barefoot newsboys selling green-tinted papers, and there, was the omnipresent donkey-cart, and, scarcely less conspicuous, that other distinctively Irish vehicle, the jaunting-car, with the seats hung above the wheels.