At Rathdrum I was told that not one of the Protestants of that place, though they amounted to several hundreds, had taken the pledge. This I had also heard in many of the small towns of the south of Ireland. In the north, on the contrary, many Protestants have become teetotallers. I can only explain this by supposing that the Protestants of the south, being the minority of the population, are more jealous of the Catholics, and therefore less inclined to join in a movement which originated with them. The Protestants at Rathdrum appeared to me even to hold temperance in no small contempt, and to speak of it with derision. They affirmed that it
The copper mines near Rathdrum are worked by gentlemen from Cornwall, of the name of Williams, who are also proprietors of mines in America. These old mines are now worked on a new system; and no less than 2000 persons are said to be employed in the mines of the vales of Avonmore and Avoca. The managers of the mines are Englishmen, and the workmen Irish. There are several lead mines also in this district, under the direction of the Irish Mining Company. Nearly all the mountains of Wicklow contain veins of metal; nay, even gold has been found in Croghan; but I fear this discovery has realised the proverb that ‘all is not gold that glitters.’
In the workhouse at Rathdrum I found 300 paupers. Three months before the number had been upwards of 350; but as it was now the potato harvest, with work plentiful and potatoes cheap, many of the inmates had requested their discharge, whilst with the return of spring they would all crowd in again. I was informed that the first patient admitted into the hospital lately erected here was a German clockmaker, from which it appears that this class of artizans, who are so numerous throughout Great Britain, are to be found even in these small Irish towns.
I know not whether the Protestants of Rathdrum are especially zealous, or whether their manners and opinions are more or less conformable to those of all Irish Protestants; but I was informed that very few of them sent their children to the national school of that place. The great subject of dispute between the Protestants and Catholics, as regards these national schools, is, whether extracts only from the Bible shall be given to the pupils, or the entire and unabridged Scriptures. The former is the wish of the Catholics, and they have carried their point; the Protestants insist on the latter, but hitherto without success, since Catholic influence preponderates at the Board of Education in Dublin.
Twenty or thirty years ago there was not a single good house in Rathdrum; now the town looks very neat and regular. The question which the English so often propose, whether Ireland is an improving country? must be answered in the affirmative, in respect of a hundred different kinds of improvements. The external appearance of the towns has everywhere improved within the last twenty years; the roads, canals, and other means of transport, are improving everyday; and the cultivation of grain, and the planting of trees, is increasing, as any one may perceive, whether travelling by highways or by-ways. The increase of
In a Protestant church at Rathdrum I saw what I had already seen in many other Protestant churches in Ireland, namely, prints from copperplate engravings,—engravings from Raphael and other painters, hung on the walls of the church, as in a saloon, in place of the oil paintings which are found in German churches. In no other country have I seen engravings so highly honoured. These prints seem to me undeserving of such an honour, whilst the dignity of the church is in some measure lowered by their introduction. What a poverty in the higher branches of art does not such a substitute indicate! In many parts of Germany, in some provinces of Austria, for instance, a painter in oils is to be found in almost every village, who is able to ornament its church as it deserves. But this introduction of black engravings into a church manifests an extreme degree of coldness and insipidity in religious art, more especially as they are not at all adapted for large buildings.
It was on a Sunday that I again mounted a little car, in order more conveniently to visit some beauties of the county of Wicklow,—the celebrated Devil's Glen, the Glen of the Downs, the Rock of Glencarrig, &c. The peculiar grouping of the mountains, (a characteristic I have already several times mentioned,) which lie in clusters, or singly beside each other, while a plain extends all round them, forms a peculiar feature in the landscape, with their two open valleys on each side, or the broad level pass between them. Mountain passes usually ascend the sides and pass over the ridge of the mountain; but here you often travel over the plain, then traverse a valley between the mountains, without ascending at all, and then, after some time, come forth again on the broad plain—a mode of travelling which produces an extremely pleasing effect.
Many Irish proprietors are now planting the mountains with trees, and I observed with pleasure the new plantations in the vale of Glencarriff. The larch seems to be here, as in Scotland, a favourite tree, and several of them were covered from top to bottom with ivy, which, the people say, never climbs the pine or the silver fir. The eye is never tired of the beautiful old oaks, and the fine groups of trees which are every where seen, with the fresh meadows between them. I can perfectly understand why people
Wo to that man who no longer perceives in himself any trace of vanity! It is in general an evident sign that his ruin is at hand. It is only after love of bare absolute necessity is satisfied, that the love of personal decoration, and the embellishment of whatever surrounds us, begins. I have found no country in which so many men have renounced all impulse for decoration, and all love of ornament, as in Ireland. It was therefore quite refreshing and gratifying to discover, in this part of the country, so many farmers' and peasants' houses ornamented in a very peculiar manner,—the ridges, edges, and borders of the straw-roofs being plaited like the manes of horses; and in some instances this plaiting was executed so neatly, that it looked as if an elegant border of lace ran all round the edge of the roof. At times cottages are seen quite luxurious in this straw-lace, being decked out with it like the ball-dress of a lady. Many of these dwellings belong to wealthy and aristocratic individuals, who sometimes whimsically term their sumptuous country-seats merely cottages. At times, however, they are the elegant, ornamented, suitable abodes of the farmers.
It is extremely gratifying to find in the little gardens of these cottages all the elements of which the great parks are composed,—a little spot of bright-green turf, kept in such wonderful order; a few neat laurel trees, every leaf of which seems to be carefully trimmed; some small arbutus, a rose-tree in full bloom on the wall of the house, and various other pretty evergreens. The narrow paths are kept as trim and neat, and bounded with as clear sharp lines as if in a drawing; and as the proprietor has not much land to lose in a mere pleasure-ground, the whole is often not much larger than an oil painting.
As the Avoca flows down to Arklow, so does the little river Vartry run into the sea at Wicklow. This little valley is also famed and visited for its beauties, especially for a wild, narrow defile, through which flows the river, after having thrown itself in a splendid cascade from a wild boggy height. This part is called the Devil's Glen. Profane as its name may sound, this celebrated spot observed its Sunday in a very pious and Christianlike manner, its owner having locked the iron gate placed at its entrance. Most
The cascade, in the back-ground of the valley, tumbles down from a wild plateau of bog, and, though now in the autumn, the bog did its best to provide it with turf-brown water; yet no part of it interested us so much as the contrast between this same brown colour of the water, and the white colour of the foam. I would have gladly returned by another, wilder side-path, on the other bank of the river; but one of the inhabitants of the cottages near the waterfall told me that Mr. S——, to whom that side of the valley belonged, allowed no one to pass that way on a Sunday. Here also the mountains have a physiognomy very usual in Ireland. Below, they are encircled with a wreath of oak and ash trees; then, a little higher up, comes a bare streak of heather; and, finally, on the very top, lie great fragments of rocks, which sometimes resemble an artificial wall.
The park of the Cunningham family, near Mount Kennedy, afforded us much more enjoyment than the Devil's Glen. This park, from its peculiarity of soil and situation, is particularly favourable to evergreens. Here are to be seen an incredible multitude of laurels, hollies, and, in a meadow, the largest arbutus in Ireland. The main trunk of this tree—the ‘Master-tree,’ as the gardener called it—no longer exists; it was cut down, I forget why. From the root, however, no fewer than twenty-five long branches or trees had shot forth on all sides. I walked round beneath the extreme tops of the branches, and found that its circumference was not less than eighty-three paces. Another giant arbutus, of similar size, existed at Rogerstown, near Dublin, till the year 1839, when unfortunately it was blown down by a storm. These old and gigantic trees, which must have been planted at a very remote period, are daily diminishing in number, either by the fury of the tempest, or the hand of man; and their gradual disappearance may suggest the question, whether the
In this garden cypresses also were growing in the open air, in a northern latitude but a few minutes removed from the fifty-third degree. There is no doubt that Ireland is that country nearest to the north in which the cypress flourishes. The rose-trees were covered with blossoms, even at this late season of the year; and I may here say, once for all, that I found them blooming every where in the open air, even in the extreme north of Ireland; and even there they rise into such high bushes and trees as to overshadow the cottages near which they are planted.
On our way from Mount Kennedy, we passed the Glen of the Downs, which is, if I may use the expression, a completely impromptu valley in the middle of a plain; for from the plain you suddenly enter a charming corridor of rocks, which is thickly hung with oaks, ivy, and bushes, and contains some glorious spots, whilst in a few minutes the quick-rolling car again emerges upon the downs. These ‘Downs’ are very numerous in Great Britain; and the word is probably derived from the Celtic ‘Dun’. The English, especially in Ireland, have corrupted numbers of Celtic words, and altered them to suit their own meaning.
After issuing from the Glen of the Downs, you perceive the Great Sugar-loaf on the left, and the Little Sugar-loaf on the right. These two mountains, which taper from the base to the summit with as much regularity as an Egyptian pyramid, are the most remarkable hills in the county of Wicklow; but the names by which they are known in Ireland cannot be of very ancient origin, as scarcely three hundred years have elapsed since sugar-loaves of a conical form were first made. Both these mountains are quite bare from top to bottom.
Not far from the Sugar-loaves lies the well-known Killonderry park, and the little town of Bray; while the demesne and mansion of Powerscourt, and the little town of Enniskerry, are but a short way off. Then follows an extraordinary number of little towns, villages, parks, castles, houses, cottages, and other descriptions of country-seats, all of which are more or less distinguished by their situation and their charming pleasure-grounds. In a word, the district from hence to Dublin is most populous, and extremely rich in villages and towns; here houses and cultivation are no longer required. It is a most beautiful drive; and is to Ireland what the county of Kent is to England. We had frequent glimpses of the sea, which disappeared again behind oaks, parks, and mountains. Of Ireland—the old Celtic, turfy, wild Ireland—there is