Ireland has never been at peace until now. No soil has been fought over so often. The mysterious round towers that we see on the hilltops and in the glens in their lonely majesty are evidence that it was necessary for the overlords to build places of refuge for their servants, and provide means for lighting signal fires to warn them against the enemies that surrounded them. "In the Island o' Ruins remembrance o' grief Hallows the hills as, when summer is slowly Fadin' in darkness, the fall o' the leaf Makes the woods holy. "Green are the woods though the mountains are gray; Spring is too young to remember old doin's. Ah! but I wish I was roamin' to-day In the Island o' Ruins!" The little station of Doneraile is the getting-off place for visitors who would see one of the most attractive ruins in Ireland, both for its picturesque beauty and for its historical associations. A solitary tower, standing by a small river in a lonely and deserted glen, is all that remains of Kilcolman Castle, one of the greatest strongholds of the Geraldines, afterward and at the time of its destruction the home of Ireland's greatest poet, Edmund Spenser. He came here in 1580 as private secretary to Earl Grey, then lord lieutenant, and after one of the many rebellions he was given a little more than three thousand acres which surrounded this castle, confiscated from the Earl of Desmond, as one of the "undertakers," as certain speculators and adventurers were called who agreed to colonize the country with English settlers. It was here and in the neighboring town of Youghal, the home of Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1589 and 1590, that Spenser wrote the "Faerie Queene," which was published at the expense of Raleigh and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. For this honor the queen proposed to give him quite a liberal pension. Lord Treasurer Burleigh remonstrated, saying: "What? So much for a rhyme?" "Well, then, give him what is reason," said her majesty. Nothing further was heard of the matter, however, until Spenser sent the Virgin Queen the following epigram: "I was promised on a time To have reason for my rhyme. From that time, until this season, I've had neither rhyme nor reason." Elizabeth was so pleased that she instantly ordered Spenser's name to be put upon the pension rolls at fifty pounds a year. Spenser married an obscure relative of the famous Earl of Cork, a Miss Boyle, and lived in the old castle until 1598, when it was sacked and burned by the rebels in the Tyrone uprising. His youngest son perished in the flames and, heart-broken and beggared, he took the rest of his family to London and died within a few months from starvation and grief. He was buried in Westminster Abbey at the expense of the Earl of Essex.