My Ireland

MY IRELAND BY LORD DUNSANY ILLUSTRATED FUNK WAGNALLS COMPANY NEW YORK AND LONDON 1937 FUNK WAGNALLS COMPANY CPrinted la the United it First publiAfaml Stpitmhrr, u tht df lie of tlM Pui-Amerfcaa mi iim BLARNEY CASTLE, NEAR CORK, BriLT NEARLY FIVE YEARS ACK Contents JL A IL TARA ....... IO III. ST. PATRICK ...... 1 8 IV. OLD MICKEY ...... 26 V. FRANCIS LEDWIDGE .... 46 VL HOW THE STUDENTS CAME TO TRIM . 62 VIL A LAPSE OF MEMORY .... 74 VIIL JACK-SNIPE ....... 83 IX. WOODCOCK ...... 93 X GRAY LAGS ...... 101 XL BUSINESS ...... K amp gt 8 XII. JOHN WATSON ..... 121 XIII. THE STATE OF THE MOON . . .127 XIV. SWANS ....... 136 XV. A BIT OF PHILOSOPHY STRAYS INTO THE WRONG BOOK . . . .149 XVI. SNIPE ....... 156 XVIL SITTING FOR DUCK . 164 XVIII. GOLDEN PLOVER . . ., - 173 vi CONTENTS CHARTS XIX. WEEDS AND . . 1 XX. THE WIND AND THE WET AGAINST THE COTTAGES . . - . .190 XXL ONLY ABOUT THE - . 2OO XXII. A GREAT HUNT ..... 207 XXIII. A BAD NIGHT TO BE OUT, . 214 XXI. ST. STEPHEN ...... 226 XXV. A RIDE TO LBIXLIP . . . . 232 XXVI. DIIN6 WITH THE . ., 241 XXVII. MAGIC ....... 247 XXVIIL CRICKET ...... 254 XXIX. DUBLIN ....... 262 XXX. A CONVERSATION IN, 272 XXXL GROWING OATS IN THE, . 279 XXXIL FAREWELL ...... 285 Illustrations FACING PAGE Blarney Castle . . . . Frontispiece A Thatched Cottage . . . . . 16 An Ancient Peat Bog - .. 17 Ruins of Bective Abbey ..... 64 Gathering Peat for Fuel . . . . 65 Sunset over the River Shannon at Athlone . 80 Early Morning in Limerick . . 81 Newtown Abbey on the Boyne . . . .120 Off for a Hunt with Horses and Hounds . 121 Ruins of Muckross Abbey 184 Passing One of the Beautiful Lakes of Killarney 185 The Giant s Causeway 248 Ballyshannon 249 Black Rock Castle280 A Misty Morning in the Town of Killarney 281 A. E. I F I let myself be lured to attempt to distil a story from so wide an area as Ireland, it seems to me that I should somehow get some clear view of it. How shall I get that Shall it be by motoring over every road in Ireland I think not the material would be too much for use, and I should see so much that was new to me, and so see it almost as a stranger. I will rather look again at fields and streams that I know, and the view of them may strengthen and brighten my memories, and so I shall tell of the Ireland that I know best And whence shall I see most of it Fortunately the spot from which one can see most of Ireland is a field that stands in the center of Irish history, and is but a few hundred yards from the edge of my own land. It is Tara. So there I will go. When I came to Tara and looked over the plain of Meath there was a storm like a litde lost thing, in the west, going before a south wind with the sunlight chasing it Green fields turned silvery under it as it came. The skirts of the rain went before it, and intensely bright fields flashed where the storm had not yet come. It shadowed a county, 2 MY IRELAND with silvery-green parishes standing out clear here and there, and went away to the north, where hills were gleaming in sunlight for storms over this plain seem to pass like travelers, like dark men walking rarely along a wide road that forgets them. Far off, like happy ghosts, the Dublin Mountains smiled where the passing shafts of sunlight touched them. They sit and smile at one end of that pano rama, which goes from them in the south round by Slieve Bloom and the Hill of Usnagh, past all the hills beyond Oldcastle, towhere the Mourne Mountains looking upon the sea end the great view away in the northeast So let me begin my memories at the feet of those mountains that give a continual surprise and beauty to Dublin for you suddenly catch a sight of them looking down the end of a street, and their wild and lovely heads whenever seen seem something you did not expect to see from a city. Much has been lost to Dublin in my time, for instance the Four Courts and the Customs House...