"Did yez ivir hear about the midnight marriage of the master of Blarney Castle which took place here in the ruined abbey in the year 1590, which Quane Elizabeth an' the intire parlymint did their best to prevint? It's a great story. The heads of the two branches of the MacCarthy family were thin united in the persons of Florence MacCarthy of Blarney Castle, the same gintleman that deludered Quane Elizabeth with his soft words and caused the invintion of the word 'blarney' that is used so much these days. Waal, he was in love with Aileen MacCarthy, his cousin, daughter of Donal MacCarthy Mor, Earl of Glencare. The two factions had been inemies, and it was the policy of the English to kape thim apart, because a reconciliation would bring them togither an' make thim more dangerous to British authority. And that was what Quane Elizabeth was trying to prevint. She feared that if the MacCarthy factions made frinds they would join Hugh O'Neill and the great Earl of Desmond, thin in rebellion, and so the marriage was forbidden by her majesty. An' that made Florence MacCarthy all the more determined to wed Aileen, who had been his sweetheart in sacrit for several years, and one day he crossed the lake wid Lady Aileen and her mother in a boat rowed by four lusty gallowglasses with their battle-axes lyin' where the oars had been. "They landed at midnight at the abbey, thin half in ruins, solemn and mournful, in silence and decay. The moon shone through the roofless walls and the broken windows of the crumbling shrine of Irrelagh, upon the blissed head of a vinerable friar, Florence MacCarthy's chaplain, who was awaiting thim himself--one of thim who, in the dark days of Henry VIII. was expelled from the abbey at the point of a Protestant sword. Wid him was O'Sullivan Mor, MacFinian, the Countess of Glencare, and the beautiful Lady Una O'Leary, and that was all. No bard was there to sing the bridal song, no harp to give swate sounds, no banner to wave, no clansmen to raise a joyous cheer, an' no spear or battle-ax gleamed in the moonlight, but the Blissed Virgin and all the saints were lookin' down all the while, approvin', through the roofless aisles, when Florence MacCarthy and Aileen MacCarthy pledged their vows. [Illustration: A WINDOW OF MUCKROSS ABBEY, KILLARNEY] "This sacred marriage was proclaimed an act of treason by Quane Elizabeth, and for that Florence MacCarthy went to the Tower, but he got the bist of it after all."