All over Ireland, from Cork to Belfast, from Dublin to Galway, are scattered the ruins of churches, abbeys, and ecclesiastical buildings, the relics of a country once rich, prosperous and populous. These ruins raise their castellated walls and towers, noble even in decay, sometimes in the midst of a village, crowded with the miserably poor, sometimes on a mountain, in every direction commanding magnificent prospects; sometimes on an island in one of the lakes, which, like emeralds in a setting of deeper green, gem the surface of the rural landscape and contribute to increase the beauty of scenery not surpassed in the world. Ages ago the voice of prayer and the song of praise ceased to ascend from these sacred edifices, and they are now visited only by strangers, guides, and parties of humble peasants, the foremost bearing on their shoulders the remains of a companion to be laid within the hallowed enclosure, for although the church is in ruins, the ground in and about it is still holy and in service when pious hands lay away in the bosom of earth the bodies of those who have borne the last burden, shed the last tear, and succumbed to the last enemy. But among all the pitiable spectacles presented in this unhappy [Illustration: THE ROCK OF CASHEL.] THE ROCK OF CASHEL. country, none is better calculated to inspire sad reflections than a rural graveyard. The walls of the ruined church tower on high, with massive cornice and pointed window; within stand monuments and tombs of the Irish great; kings, princes, and archbishops lie together, while about the hallowed edifice are huddled the graves of the poor; here, sinking so as to be indistinguishable from the sod; there, rising in new-made proportions; yonder, marked with a wooden cross, or a round stick, the branch of a tree rudely trimmed, but significant as the only token bitter poverty could furnish of undying love; while over all the graves, alike of the high born and of the lowly, the weeds and nettles grow. "Sure there’s no saxton, Sorr," said car-man Jerry Magwire, in answer to a question, "We dig the graves ourselves whin we put them away, an’ sometimes there’s a fight in the place whin two berryin’s meet. Why is that? Faith, it’s not for us to be talkin’ o’ them deep subjects widout respict, but it’s the belafe that the last wan berrid must be carryin’ wather all the time to the sowls in Purgathory till the next wan comes to take the place av him. So, ye mind, when two berryin’s happen to meet, aitch party is shtrivin’ to be done foorst, an’ wan thries to make the other lave aff, an’ thin they have it. Troth, Irishmen are too handy wid their fishts entirely, it’s a weak pint wid ’em. But it’s a sad sight, so it is, to see the graves wid the nettles on thim an’ the walls all tumblin’. It isn’t every owld church that has a caretaker like him of Cashel. Bedad, he was betther nor a flock av goats to banish the weeds.