On Sir John Roe Vs Lament of Art Oleary
Two Roads Through West Cork
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March 13, 1988
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BY EARLY VICTORIAN DAYS, English language tourists were at last venturing into Republic of ireland. One of the first recorded uses of the word ''tourism,'' in fact, occurs in Thackeray'due south ''Irish Sketch Volume of 1842.''
Earlier and then, Republic of ireland had enjoyed in England a reputatuion for violence, danger, dirt and wretched roads, although the Lakes of Kilarney, tucked abroad in remote Canton Kerry, were already fabulous, a tardily-Romantic dream of h2o, heaven, mist-shrouded mountains. The 18th century had closed upon rebellions, bloodily waged and brutally suppressed. but with more peaceful times, the English began to see the island as an exotic kingdon lying at their doorstep, picturesque, ramshackle, crowded with ivied ruins and offering promise of comic misadventures and encounteres with droll, tattered natives.
The ascension army of guidebook writers, therefore, had the job of seeing the English traveler beyond the county of Cork, over the mountains and upwards Kerry to the legendary lakes. That took the traveler along what is even so called ''the western route,'' through Bandon, Dunmanway and Bantry. But there were 2 other routes, equally tourists were informed by Mr. and Mrs. S.C. Hall, the indefatigable and garrulous authors of ''Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, Etc.,'' a volume of clarification published in the 1840's that ran to iii tall volummes.
I road, ''the longer, but more interesting route,'' ran forth the coast. The other, well to the north, went through the town of Macroom. The Halls did not recommend it heartily, fifty-fifty though it offered access to Gougane Barra, a minor, mount-girded jewel of a lake, with, at its centre, a pilgrim-haunted shrine. And even though the rough road ran thence along the savage Pass of Keimaneigh, breaking through the tall, tumbled heights: ''Nowhere has Nature causeless a more appalling attribute, or manifested a more than stern resolve to dwell in her ain loneliness and grandeur, undisturbed past any living thing - for even the birds seem to shun a solitude so awful.'' This must exist Mrs. Hall, to whom her hubby entrusted the fine writing.
For Victorians, the coast road seemed far more attractive, every bit information technology has seemed over the years. It carries the traveler through the little sea-wedded towns of cork - Kinsale, Clonakilty, Rosscarbery. The shops and pubs are painted in bright whites and dejection and yellows and pinks. And there are restaurants that, with a view toward visitors from the Continent, have improved profoundly since Thackeray'southward 24-hour interval.
But at the West Cork Hotel in Skibbereen, stiff farmers and their families yet consume enormous, thoroughly cooked meals, plates laden with beef or salmon, and potatoes the size of grenades, as though to drive off ancestral memories of the great famine of the 1840'southward.
At Skibbereen the traveler may swerve off class a mile or two, to left or right. The road to the right leads to Baltimore, whose improbable claim to fame is that it was sacked by Algerian pirates in 1631, and its inhabitants carried off into slavery. Today, the varicolored sails of pleasure craft dip in the bay, without menance.
The left fork leads to Castletownshend. Here Edith Somerville and Violet Martin lived, and here they wrote the Irish R.Chiliad. stories - R.M. for a resident magistrate, Major Yeates, who takes upwards the hopeless task of maintainig police and British decorum in a stretch of West Cork. Their stories capture with delicacy and wit the autumnal browns and russets of the final decades of the Anglo-Irish ruling grade - those turn-of-the-century years in which history handed them a bill that after would be collected in revolution. There is a good pub called Mary Ann's, and, in the middle of the steep, narrow street, an oak tree.
In Bantry, if the visitor is curious to know how the grandest of the Anglo-Irish lived before their melancholy refuse, in that location is Bantry Firm, spacious and splendidly designed, with a terrace opening upon the bay. The ornate dining room is dominated by full-length portraits of George III and Queen Charlotte, in fantastic, gilded baroque frames. The 2d Earl of Bantry, of early Victorian days, was an avid collector - 15th- and 16th-century Russian icons and, in the cautious language of Desmond Guinness, our authority on Georgian Ireland, ''a pair of bookcases and a piece of work-table reputed to accept been the property of Marie Antoinette, and fireplaces which are said to have come from the Petit Trianon at Versailles.''
From the terrace of Bantry House, the visitor can look across the bay toward the Caha Mountains, at whose feet, commanding its own comely cove, lies the village of Glengariff. Thackeray put up there, at the ''very pretty inn,'' and noted:
''A beautiful bay stretches out before the firm, the full tide washing the thorn-copse; mountains ascent on either side of the footling bay, and there is an isle, with a castle on it, in the midst, near which a yacht was moored. Just the mountains were hardly visible for the mist, and the yacht, island, and castle washed against the flat gray sky in Indian-ink.''
In after Victorian days, and stretching into the Edwardian years and well across them, Glengariff was the great manner station for tourists to Killarney, and the pretty inn was succeeded by the Eccles Hotel. A Cork joke described Glengariff every bit ''a small group of houses surrounding Eccles Hotel.'' On my old one-half-inch map, the hotel is named, every bit if it were a lake or a mountain. It survives, but every bit a shadow of itself, competing confronting sleeker establishments on the bay.
But WITHIN THE SHADOW, imagination tin create, as a sepia photograph, visitors settled outside the hotel in their pony-fatigued trap, with an immense harbinger picnic hamper, the gentlemen in crude tweeds, and wide-brimmed hats for the ladies. Behind them, unhidden now by mists, prevarication mountains that drew from literary travelers the full arsenal of Romantic landscape adjectives - wild, majestic, gloomy, tumultuous. Ahead lies the final stage of their journey - Glengariff to Killarney. This part had non e'er been easy. The Halls tell u.s.a. that before ''tunnels were cutting and the road fabricated, travelers were compelled to order carriages from Kenmare to encounter them on the Kerry side of the mount; or, as was unremarkably done, hire v or six stout peasants from Glengariff to carry the car on their shoulders over rocks and along precipices exceedingly unsafe.''
On their trip to the lakes, Thackeray and his companions, driving at terminal through ''ii miles of avenues of lime-trees,'' were made suddenly enlightened, by ''a hideous row of houses,'' that they had reached Killarney. Information technology has never enjoyed a practiced press. ''The town of Killarney,'' say the Halls with an austerity that from their pens speaks volumes, ''may be dismissed in a sentence.'' Fifty-fifty in the 1840'south the streets outside the hotels swarmed with jaunting cars and jarvey-men prepared to take travelers to the lakes to the accompaniment of blarney and alpine tales.
Merely beyond the town lay the unchallengeable magnificence of the lakes and mountains. Victorians knew that they had arrived at a celebrated ''beauty spot'' - Mont Blanc or the G Canal, only set in a minor key, soft, cloud-shadowed. ''Turk, Tomies, and Mangerton were clothed in purple like kings in mourning; neat heavy clouds were gathered round their heads, parting away every at present and and then.'' Thus did Thackeray, dutifully if without inspiration, spread out the Victorian linguistic cloth of mount gloom and mount celebrity.
The pleasures of that historic coastal route are visual. Almost, on a misty day, tactile. The pleasures of the second road, the ane that the Halls found ''less interesting,'' the one that I prefer, are auditory - historical -yielding themselves to the ear of the imagination.
Macroom is a typical Irish marketplace boondocks, dominated by a marketplace business firm, its foursquare flanked by shops, by pubs, by two hotels intended for commercial travelers and auc-tioneers rather than for vacation-makers, by the gates to a castle destroyed in the civil state of war of 1922-23. Simply the marketplace house, although no plaque informs you lot of this, stands on the site of an earlier house that is linked to one of the great Gaelic stories of love, violence, pride and decease.
On a mean solar day in 1767, Art O'Leary, of the outlawed Catholic elite, who had been a reckless officer in the Austrian army, was spied by Eileen O'Connell of Kerry every bit he rode past the marketplace house astride his ''dark white steed, the peerless, whose forehead diameter a snow-white star.'' They married confronting the wishes of her family, who rightly distrusted his hot temper.
In 1773, O'Leary was quarreling fiercely with Abraham Morris, the high sheriff, and at terminal, on May 4th, rode out to kill him. Eluding O'Leary, Morris sent a troop of militia in pursuit of him, and one of them shot Art O'Leary dead. O'Leary'due south horse, some other handsome steed and in some versions the cause of the quarrel, came domicile with empty saddle. Receiving no justice from English language law, the wild and inconsolable Eileen successfully incited her married man'due south brother to kill Morris.
Information technology is the very stuff of carol, whether Irish gaelic, Sicilian, Scottish or Basque. And yet it all happened. Art O'Leary is buried in Kilcrea churchyard below an inscription that for Frank O'Connor expressed completely the Irish ideal of manhood: ''Lo! Arthur O'Leary, generous, handsome, brave. . . .''
Only he is commemorated by something more than powerful than a ballad - the lament that Eileen composed, ane of the great cries of grief and rage in any language. Some of Republic of ireland's all-time modern writers, from O'Connor himself to John Montague and Thomas Kinsella, have tried their easily at translating it. Here is Montague's rendering of its final lines, trigger-happy and ascetic: Until Art O'Leary comes again This sorrow won't elevator That lies across my center Like a tightly locked trunk With rust on the hasps And the key thrown abroad. So stop your weeping now Women of the soft, moisture eyes And drinkable to Art O'Leary Before he enters the grave school Not to study wisdom and song But to carry earth and rock.
In this way, by audio echoing down through generations, the civilization of Ireland sustains itself, resting solidly upon air.
From Macroom, the traveler may drive, not southward toward Gougane Barra, merely w, crossing the Derrynasaggart Mountains, and dropping down to Killarney along the valley of the Flesk. The mountains are empty and menacing, though purple with gorse, black with rocks polished by rains and mists from the Atlantic. The valley is greenish, soft-featured; smoke rises from the chimneys of distant houses.
On both sides of the mountains is the ''hidden Ireland,'' the Gaelic-speaking country that had survived through the last ii centuries, battered and half-fugitive, about unnoticed past official Ireland, which used English in its literature and politics. Information technology survives today. Maps marker out those areas that take remained Gaelic speaking: the Gaeltacht. Nearly are on the seacoasts, merely there is as well this one, inland, hill-encircled.
Here there is one small-scale village, Ballyvourney. It has an excellent pub, The Mills Inn - pints of Guinness, dark, creamy-headed; smoked salmon and brown breadstuff; in season, oysters from Galway, cool, the sea's mystery amid brown hills. Ballyvourney, too, is famous in verse, although, again, there is no sign to tell you this.
Once, early in the 18th century, poets were gathered at dark in a house hither, and when the phonation of an arrival was heard exterior, one of them leaped up to shout: I recognize the note of a man of true power, the witty Egan, Budgeted this height, full of wisdom and re spect. (Translation, Daniel Cor kery)
Egan O'Rahilly, who was born in about 1675 into relative ease, when his people, the Catholic Gaels, had still some pale in the land. He lived to see them, and their language, overthrown in battles at the Boyne, Aughrim, Composition in 1690-91. And and so, in poverty, he learned a diet of dogfish and periwinkle. Or and then he tells u.s.. It might not have been quite that bad. There were many pleasant nights of poetry.
On a deceptively however day, a wind may of a sudden move down from the Derrynasaggarts. O'Rahilly was built-in across them, in Kerry. And then, as well, in 1748, was Owen Roe O'Sullivan, wit, disreputable schoolmaster, lecher, mean solar day laborer. Before setting off for the hiring fair, he had his spade repaired by his friend Fitzgerald, the blacksmith: Make me a handle as straight as the mast of a ship, Seamus, you clever man, witty and bountiful, Sprung through the Florentine lords from the kings of Greece, And fix the treadle and send it back to me shortly. (Translation, Frank O' Connor) Music equally well as word is wedded to these hills. Virtually Ballyvourney, in St. Gobnet's placidity graveyard with its ruined church, guarded by Seamus Potato'south massive statue of the saint, lies buried Sean O'Riada, the 20th-century composer. O'Riada, classically trained, restored to our time the traditional music of Ireland, arranging it for harp and harpsichord, penny whistle and the shallow goatskin drum known as the bodhran. For his tunes, he turned to the four provinces of Ireland, merely they seem to accept hither their most natural dwelling, upon meadows moving to foothills, beyond them the rock-tumbled mountains that shield the legendary lakes.
If you lot have heard information technology once, O'Riada's music will stay with yous across the mountains and along the Flesk, plaintive or ebullient, its tones heather colored.
The hurry of Killarney boondocks will drive the music from your mind, but the lakes prevarication close at hand. And if, like me, you have been affected by the less ''interesting'' road, you may wish to visit an aboriginal, ruined church building on the shores of Lough Leane. Muckross friary was founded for the Observantine Franciscans in 1448, by Donal MacCarthy Mor. It holds well its shattered nobility. Here lie buried the old princely families of Kerry, the MacCarthys and the O'Donoghues of the Glen.
BUT HERE Likewise Prevarication Cached the 2 most famous of the hosts of poets of the hidden Ireland -Egan O'Rahilly and Owen Roe O'Sullivan.
O'Rahilly would probably have drawn back in genteel disdain from the bustle and vacation liveliness of Killarney town: he was a dreadful snob. But O'Sullivan, upon trained instinct, would at in one case take found out the liveliest public house, one offering promise of music and well-fatigued stout.
And lest you have also seriously the stories told past your jaunting-machine commuter, you might recall that beyond the road, in Killegy churchyard, lies buried the 18th-century High german writer and swindler, Rudolf Erich Raspe, who concocted the adventures of Baron Munchhausen, the archduke of liars. SOJOURNING IN W CORK Food AND LODGINGS
KENMARE: The Park Hotel (telephone: 64-41200; in New York, 714-2323), a 19th-century business firm with antiquarian furnishings, is prepare in 11 acres of garden overlooking the bounding main. It is open up from April 1 to Nov. 30 and for the week from Christmas to New Twelvemonth. In that location are 48 rooms, all with bath. Bed-and-breakfast for ii costs most $190 to $245 (computed at a rate of i Irish gaelic pound - $1.threescore). A restaurant specialty is craven breast stuffed with salmon in a prawn sauce; dinner for two with vino is nigh $115. Golf game, tennis, angling and croquet are available.
BANTRY: Bantry Business firm (27-50047), which recently added hotel facilities to the established stately dwelling museum, has nine double rooms, all with bath, for about $75 a night, including breakfast. Dinner is about $40 for two, with wine - shepherd's pie is a specialty. The house tin can be visited daily; admission is about $three.
KINSALE: The Bluish Haven Hotel (21-772209), has 10 rooms, 7 with bath. Bed-and-breakfast for ii ranges from about $60 to nearly $85. The restaurant, closed in January, serves mainly seafood; dinner for two with wine is about $65.
GLENGARIFF: The 250-twelvemonth-sometime Eccles Hotel (27-63003) has 60 rooms, all with bathroom and nigh with views of Bantry Bay. Bed-and-breakfast for two is nearly $50. A five-class dinner for 2, including vino, is also well-nigh $l -mussels in garlic butter is a specialty. Lawn tennis, squash, snooker and a sauna are available; there are ballad sessions in the bar at night.
SKIBBEREEN: The Due west Cork Hotel (28-21277) has 40 rooms, all with bathroom. Bed-and-breakfast for 2 ranges from almost $55 to most $60. Dinner for two with wine is about $50. Fresh local fish is a specialty. The hotel and the restaurant are closed during Christmas week.
BALLYVOURNEY: The Mills Inn (26-45014) has vi rooms, two with showers. Bed-and-breakfast for two costs nearly $40, and dinner for ii is near $50, with wine. The pub luncheon - smoked salmon, homemade chocolate-brown breadstuff, a pint of Guinness - is about $6 a person.
CASTLETOWNSHEND: Mary Ann'south (28-36146) has no overnight accommodations. A pub lunch consisting of local salmon, smoked trout or prawns with bootleg soda bread, salad and a pint of Guinness is about $10. At that place are sing-alongs on Wednesday and Sunday evenings. ON TOUR IN W CORK SIGHTS TO SHE
In Bantry Bay, Garinish Island has gardens with subtropical plants nurtured by the Gulf Stream. The ferry from Glengariff operates every 20 minutes betwixt March ane and Oct. 31. Ferry tickets cost near $half dozen; admission to the island is about $two.
Creagh Gardens, on the coast nearly Skibbereen, are at their best in May and June, when the azaleas and rhododendrons are blooming. The gardens are open daily from 10 to half-dozen, Easter to Sept. 30; admission is well-nigh $1.
The recently restored Charles Fort in Kinsale is an case of a 17th-century star-shaped fortress. It is open daily from mid-June to mid-September; times vary for the rest of the year. Access is about $two.
On the route from Macroom to Blarney are the Dripsey Woollen Mills, with an outlet store that sells blankets, bolts of tweed, handknit sweaters, skirts, shawls and more than, at 25 to l percent less than shop prices. A handknit Aran sweater sells for about $fourscore; tweed, depending on weight, is nigh $x to $20 a chiliad. The shop is open weekdays and Sun afternoons.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/13/magazine/two-roads-through-west-cork.html
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