The Letters of "Norah" on Her Tour Through IrelandNorah
History
The Letters of "Norah" on Her Tour Through Ireland
Norah
Ireland -- Description and travel
In due time we arrived at a little door in the wall, where a man stood
in Mr. Herbert's interest, who gave a small ticket for sixpence,
unlocked the little arched door and admitted the stranger into this
temple of nature and art. A board hung on a tree was the first object,
warning visitors not to pluck ferns or flowers, the man at the gate
having notice to deprive marauding visitors of anything so gathered.
There is a winding gravel walk leading up the height almost alongside of
the brawling stream that leaps from rock to rock. I did not see any
flowers at all, but the common heather bell in two varieties and the
large coarse fern so common in our Canadian woods. There are many
cascades unnamed and unnoticed in our Canadian forests as handsome as
Torc Cascade. When you get up a good way you come to a black fence that
bars the way. You are above the tall firs, and the solemn Torc Mountain
rises far above you. I would have been lost in admiration had I never
seen the upper Ottawa or the River aux Lievres. Feeling no inclination
to commit petty larceny on the ferns, I descended slowly and returned.
The ruined abbey of Muckross is another of the sights of Killarney.
Every visitor pays a shilling to Mr. Herbert for permission to enter
here. I did not go to see it, but some of the party at the hotel did.
They described the cloisters as being in a good state of preservation--
cloisters are a kind of arched piazza running round a court yard, in
this case having in its centre a magnificent yew tree. These ruins are
taken great care of, therefore parts of the abbey are in a pretty good
state of preservation. They tell of a certain man named John Drake, who
took possession of the abbey kitchen about one hundred years ago, lived
there as a hermit for about eleven years in the odor of sanctity.
There was quite a party going through the gap of Dunloe, which reduced
the price of the trip to very little, comparatively speaking, and I was
persuaded to join it. Every available spot about here has a lordly
tower, a lady's bower, an old ruin or a new castle. The Workhouse is
fine enough and extensive enough for a castle, and the Lunatic Asylum
might be a palace for a crowned head. There are the ruins of Aghadon
Castle on one ridge and the shrunk remains of a round tower. A brother
of the great O'Connell lives here in a white house bearing the same name
as the hotel, Lakeview House. We look with some interest at Dunloe
Castle. once the residence of O'Sullivan Mor, and listen to the car-man
who tells us of the glories of the three great families that owned
Kerry, O'Sullivan Mor, O'Sullivan Bear and great O'Donoghoe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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