The Charm of Ireland

SINCE we could not get to Athlone by water, we must needs get there by rail; so, most regretfully, next morning, we bade good-bye to Castleconnell and took train for Limerick. H...

DUBLIN is fortunate in its environs. A few miles to the south or west, and one is in the midst of lovely scenery. The Liffey, just above the town, changes from an unsightly stre...

WE were ready to say good-bye to Galway and to fare westward into far Connaught, most primitive of Irish provinces; but on Sunday there is only a single train each way, and the...

I HAD one other trip to make in Ireland. That was to the scene of the battle of the Boyne, to the tombs of the kings at Dowth and Newgrange, and to the ruins near-by of two of t...

YOU may well believe that, with such variegated loveliness all about us, we did not linger in the hotel a moment longer than was necessary, but made a hasty tea and sallied fort...

I HAVE already spoken of the wonders of the River Shannon, which rises in a bubbling cauldron away above Lough Allen, and flows down through ten counties to the sea; widening in...

WE took a last look about the town, next morning, not forgetting the Glendining monument, which has the fascination supreme ugliness sometimes possesses; and then we walked on d...

THE weather god was certainly good to us in Ireland. The occasional showers and two or three heavy downpours were merely short interludes, and by no means unpleasant ones, in th...

IT was in the dusk of early evening that our train started westward from Athlone, and we soon found ourselves traversing again the dreary bogs which we had crossed on our way fr...

THERE was quite a crowd on the platform, that Sunday morning, of travellers turning their backs on Killarney, and we found ourselves eventually in a compartment with two America...

ASs far back as its history goes, Donegal was the seat of the O'Donnells, that powerful clan of which the choicest flowers were Hugh Roe and Red Hugh, and here they had their ca...

TWENTY-FIVE miles away to the eastward from Leenane, across a wild stretch of hill and bog known as Joyce's Country, are the ruins of the old abbey of Cong, and thither we set o...

THERE are some caves at the Causeway which are said to be well worth visiting, but we found, next morning, that a stiff wind during the night had kicked up such a sea that it wa...

WE threw back the shutters, next morning, to a cold and dreary day of misting rain; and after a look at it, Betty elected to spend it before a cosy fire in our great, high-ceili...

I CAN imagine no greater contrast to the quiet and peaceful valley of the Boyne than was Belfast that night. The Orangemen had already begun to celebrate King Billy's victory, a...

WE wanted to drive around Lough Gill, a distance of about twenty-five miles, and I had mentioned this project to our landlord the day before, and asked the price of a car. He sa...

OUR third day in Dublin was ushered in by a tremendous explosion. In a minute the street outside was filled with dense black smoke, and then in another minute with excited peopl...

I KNOW Dublin somewhat better now, and I no longer think of it as a gay town--rather as a supremely tragic one. Turn the corner from any of the main thoroughfares, and you will...

IT was well we went to Cong when we did, for the next day was cold and rainy, with a clammy mist in the air which settled into the valleys and soaked everything it touched. I wa...

DUBLIN is by far the most fascinating town in Ireland. She has charm--that supreme attribute alike of women and of cities; and she has beauty, which is a lesser thing. She is ri...

IT had been on a Saturday evening that we first saw Dublin, and it was on a Saturday evening that we reached Belfast; and we had thought the streets of Dublin crowded, but compa...

IF one doesn't like bacon and eggs, one must go without breakfast in Ireland, unless one likes fish, or is content with bread and butter. Every evening Betty would have a colloq...

THERE are many excursions which can be made over and around the Killarney lakes, but the most important one--the "grand tour," so to speak--starts at the town, proceeds by car t...

THE shops of Belfast, with their embroidered linens (duty, forty-five per cent!), proved a magnet too great for Betty to resist, but I hied me away, next day, into County Down,...

THERE are two ways of getting from Cork to Killarney, one by the so-called "Prince of Wales Route," because the late King Edward went that way in 1858, and the other by way of M...

IT was getting on toward evening when we caught our train on the main line at Goold's Cross. The storm had swept southward, and the hills there were masked with rain, but the Go...

DERRY has a charm--the charm of the hive--for it is a busy town, and a cheerful one. It is only on mooted anniversaries, I fancy, or when some fire-brand politician comes to tow...

THERE is no busier place in Derry than the stretch of quays along the river, and one may see ships there not only from England and Belgium and France, but from Australia and Arg...

WE had been assured more than once, during our trip through the Gap of Dunloe, that the Irish rain is a soft, sweet rain, which does nobody any harm, and we found that this was...

THERE was one more excursion we wanted to make from Dublin. That was to Drogheda (pronounced Drawda) of bitter memory; from where we hoped to drive to the scene of the battle of...

IT was very evident, as we went back to Cork, that the people who live there do not regard it as an earthly paradise, for it seemed as though the whole population of the place w...

TWILIGHT was at hand when the little steamer, slender as a greyhound, cast loose from the pier at Holyhead, made its way cautiously out past the breakwater, and then, gathering...