Penelope's Irish ExperiencesWiggin, Kate Douglas Smith
General
Penelope's Irish Experiences
Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith
Ireland -- Fiction
Then there's Lord and Lady Killbally; faix there's no iliganter family
on this counthryside, and they has the beautiful quality stoppin' wid
thim, begob! They have a pew o' their own in the church, an' their
coachman wears top-boots wid yaller chimbleys to thim. They do be very
openhanded wid the eatin' and the drinkin', and it bangs Banagher the
figurandyin' we do have wid thim! So you see Ould Ireland is not too
disthressful a counthry to be divartin' ourselves in, an' we have our
healths finely, glory be to God!
Well, we must be shankin' off wid ourselves now to the Colquhouns',
where they're wettin' a dhrop o' tay for us this mortial instant.
It's no good for yous to write to us here, for we'll be quittin' out o'
this before the letther has a chanst to come; though sure it can folly
us as we're jiggin' along to the north.
Don't be thinkin' that you've shlipped hould of our ricollections,
though the breadth of the ocean say's betune us. More power to your
elbow! May your life be aisy, and may the heavens be your bed!
Penelope O'Connor Beresford.
Part Third--Ulster.
Chapter XVII. The Glens of Antrim.
'Silent, O Moyle, [*] be the roar of thy water;
Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose;
While murmuring mournfully, Lir's lovely daughter
Tells to the night-star her tale of woes.'
Thomas Moore.
* The sea between Erin and Alban (Ireland and Scotland) was
called in the olden time the Sea of Moyle, from the Moyle,
or Mull, of Cantire.
Sorley Boy Hotel,
Glens of Antrim.
We are here for a week, in the neighbourhood of Cushendun, just to see
a bit of the north-eastern corner of Erin, where, at the end of
the nineteenth century, as at the beginning of the seventeenth, the
population is almost exclusively Catholic and Celtic. The Gaelic
Sorley Boy is, in Irish state papers, Carolus Flavus--yellow-haired
Charles--the most famous of the Macdonnell fighters; the one who, when
recognised by Elizabeth as Lord of the Route, and given a patent for his
estates, burned the document before his retainers, swearing that
what had been won by the sword should never be held by the sheepskin.
Cushendun was one of the places in our literary pilgrimage, because of
its association with that charming Irish poetess and good glenswoman who
calls herself 'Moira O'Neill.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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