The Sunny Side of Ireland: How to see it by the Great Southern and Western RailwayO'Mahony, John
History
The Sunny Side of Ireland: How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway
O'Mahony, John
Ireland -- Guidebooks
delay in the grip of Mangerton, and the hollow of the Devil's Punch
Bowl, the flood breaks through the wall of rocks seventy feet high, and
spits a shower of spray on every futile thing which attempts to stem its
course or stay its purpose. The panorama spread out beneath the rocks of
Torc comprehends, in all their glory of colour and contrast, the Middle
and Lower Lakes beneath the mountains.
[Illustration: _Photo, Lawrence, Dublin._ Torc Waterfall, Killarney.]
[Illustration: _Photo, Lawrence, Dublin._ Ross Castle, Killarney.]
Two and a-half miles northwards by the King's Bridge, or about one mile
direct from Killarney, within sight of the ~Lower Lake~ and the Purple
Mountains, are the ruins of Aghadoe, the "Church of the two Yew Trees,"
founded under the blessing of Saint Finian. The remains of the Round
Tower and Abbot's Castle can still be seen, but these and the eighth
century doorway of the old church are all that have weathered the wind
of centuries. The summit of the old tower is a vantage point for a
vista. Dr. Todhunter has written a beautiful ballad, in imitation of the
passionate Irish laments, for an outlaw who was buried there.
AGHADOE.
There's a glade in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
There's a green and silent glade in Aghadoe,
Where we met, my love and I, love's fair planet in the sky,
O'er that sweet and silent glade in Aghadoe.
There's a glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
There's a deep and secret glen in Aghadoe,
Where I hid him from the eyes of the redcoats and their spies
That year the trouble came to Aghadoe.
Oh! my curse on one black heart in Aghadoe, Aghadoe;
On Shaun Dhuv, my mother's son, in Aghadoe!
When your throat fries in hell's drouth, salt the flame be in your mouth,
For the treachery you did in Aghadoe!
For they tracked me to that glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
When the price was on his head in Aghadoe;
O'er the mountain, through the wood, as I stole to him with food,
Where in hiding lone he lay in Aghadoe.
But they never took him living in Aghadoe, Aghadoe;
With the bullets in his heart in Aghadoe,
There he lay, the head--my breast keeps the warmth where once
'twould rest--
Gone, to win the traitor's gold, from Aghadoe!
Oh! to creep into that cairn in Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
There to rest upon his breast in Aghadoe!
Sure your dog for you could die with no truer heart than I,
Your own love, cold on your cairn in Aghadoe.
[Illustration: _Photo, Lawrence, Dublin._ The Gap of Dunloe.]
The nearest boat place for Innisfallen is at ~Ross Castle~. We approach
it from the high road across the moat, where once the drawbridge was let
up and down. The old keep, wearing a cotamore of ivy, still guards the
water's edge. By a spiral stone staircase we reach the battlements and
look out across the lake.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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