many of his converts violated their pledges, but, since the days of
Peter the Hermit, no individual has exercised such a moral influence.
"Now, Terence, me b'y, tell the loidies and gintlemen all ye know, an'
kape the rist to yoursilf," was the parting injunction of the porter of
the Imperial Hotel to the jarvey of the jaunting car, as he tucked the
rugs around our legs and started us off for Blarney Castle, which is
five miles from town. It is a delightful drive, for the suburbs of Cork
are surrounded by fertile farms and the pastures are illuminated with
buttercups in summer, and inclosed in hedges of hawthorn that are bright
with blossoms. All nature seems to be in a cheerful mood these days, and
the frequent rains, which interfere considerably with motoring, give an
appearance of freshness to all the vegetation and a vitality to the
trees and plants and flowers and everything growing. That is peculiar to
Ireland. It is true that showers come down and cease with surprising
suddenness and frequency, and the rain falls as if it was very heavy and
had dropped a long distance, but if you carry an umbrella, and that is
the universal custom, you are none the worse for it.
A narrow-gauge baby railway starts from outside the campus of Queen's
College in Cork and runs to Blarney, a town of about eight hundred
inhabitants, mostly farmers, who cultivate the surrounding soil and
breed cattle, while their wives and daughters work in a woolen factory
belonging to the Mahoney brothers, which is said to produce the best
tweed in the kingdom. And you can buy suitings at the shops in Cork.
Nothing is sold at the factory.
Blarney Castle, as everybody knows, is one of the best preserved and
most beautiful of the many ruins of Ireland, and is probably better
known throughout the world than any other because of the marvelous
qualities of a famous stone which forms a part of its walls. As Father
Prout in one of his verses expresses it:
"There is a stone there
That whoever kisses,
Oh, he never misses
To grow eloquent.
'Tis he that may clamber
To my lady's chamber,
Or become a member
Of parliament."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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