You can run down to Youghal from Cork by rail in an hour, for the
distance is only thirty miles and the train passes through a very pretty
country. Shortly after leaving the station it dashes by Black Rock
Castle, now a lighthouse and a storehouse for extra buoys and cables and
lights for the harbormaster, the place from which William Penn embarked
for America. His father, an admiral in the navy, lived at Macroom, about
thirty miles west of Cork, where the great Quaker was born. On the other
side, a little farther down, as we follow the banks of the River Lee, is
Tivoli, an amusement resort, which was once the home of Sir Walter
Raleigh, and Lady Raleigh lived there while he was off on his final
expedition to America.
"Wood Hill" was the home of John Philpott Curran, the great orator and
barrister, whose daughter was the sweetheart of Robert Emmet.
Youghal is a summer resort. There is sea bathing and boating and
delicious salt air which gives one a lazy feeling and takes away his
eagerness for antiquities and history. The only thing in the town to
attract strangers is the home of Sir Walter Raleigh and St. Mary's
Protestant Church, which is said to be the oldest house of worship in
which service is regularly held in all the world. It remains practically
unaltered from the eighth century, and one of the transepts dates from
the sixth century. There are tombs dating back to the eighth and ninth
and tenth centuries, and a slab of marble upon the altar is said to have
been taken from a Druid temple which stood on the same site.
Four holes about five inches in diameter have been made in the walls
each side of the chancel about two-thirds of the way to the roof opening
into large chambers within the walls. The verger told us that this was
an invention to relieve an echo and had been entirely successful. I have
never seen it anywhere else, and he insisted that it is unique.
He also pointed out Masonic emblems on tombs of the twelfth century and
several quaint epitaphs. One of them was as follows:
"A burial for Cristas Harford
Here is made,
Where he and his intend
For to be laid.
His life is known
Both what he was and is.
Who hopes to end the
Same in Heavenly Bliss.
1618.
Mayor of Youghal and Knight,
Knight of the Garter."
The tomb of Sir Edward Villiers, brother of the great Duke of
Buckingham, is decorated with his lance and his banner. He died "Lord
President of Munster, Anno Domini 1620," and his epitaph reads:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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