house, and two wenches with large purple feet are flapping some carpets in the air. It is a wonder the carpets will bear this kind of treatment at all, and do not be off at once to mingle with the elements; I never saw things that hung to life by such a frail thread.

This dismal pleasant place is a suburb of the second city in Ireland, and one of the most beautiful spots about the town. What a prim, bustling, active, green-railinged, tea-gardened, gravelwalked place would it have been in the five-hundredth town in England!-but you see the people can be quite as happy in the rags and without the paint, and I hear a great deal more heartiness and affection from these children than from their fat little brethren across the Channel.

BLARNEY CASTLE*

BY MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL

Few places in Ireland are more familiar to English ears than Blarney; the notoriety is attributable, first, to the marvellous qualities of its famous "stone," and next, to the extensive popularity of the song,

"The groves of Blarney, they are so charming."

When or how the stone obtained its singular reputation, it is difficult to determine; the exact position among the ruins of the castle is also a matter of doubt; the peasant-guides humor the *From "Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, Etc."

visitor according to his capacity for climbing, and direct, either to the summit or the base, the attention of him who desires to "greet it with a holy kiss." He who has been dipt in the Shannon is presumed to have obtained, in abundance, the gift of that "civil courage" which makes an Irishman at ease and unconstrained in all places and under all circumstances; and he who has kissed the Blarney stone is assumed to be endowed with a fluent and persuasive tongue, altho it may be associated with insincerity; the term "Blarney" being generally used to characterize words that are meant neither to be "honest nor true."

It is conjectured that the comparatively modern application of the term "Blarney" first had existence when the possessor, Lord Clancarty, was a prisoner to Sir George Carew, by whom he was subjected to several examinations touching his loyalty, which he was required to prove by surrendering his strong castle to the soldiers of the Queen; this act he always endeavored to evade by some plausible excuse, but as invariably professing his willingness to do so. The particulars are fully detailed in the "Pacata Hibernia."

It is certain that to no particular stone of the ancient structure is the marvelous quality exclusively attributed; but in order to make it as difficult as possible to attain the enviable gift, it had long been the custom to point out a stone, a few feet below the battlements, which the very daring only would run the hazard of touching with their lips. The attempt to do so was, indeed, so dangerous, that a few years ago Mr. Jeffreys had it removed from the wall and placed on the highest point of the building; where the visitor

may now greet it with little risk. It is about two feet square, and contains the date 1703, with a portion of the arms of the Jeffreys family, but the date, at once, negatives its claim to be considered the true marvel of Blarney. A few days before our visit a madman made his way to the top of the castle, and after dancing round it for some hours, his escape from death being almost miraculous, he flung this stone from the tower; it was broken in the fall, and now, as the guide stated to us, the "three halves" must receive three distinct kisses to be in any degree effective.

The stronghold of Blarney was erected about the middle of the fifteenth century by Cormac Mac Carthy, surnamed "Laider," or the Strong; whose ancestors had been chieftains in Munster from a period long antecedent to the English invasion, and whose descendants, as Lords of Muskerry and Clancarty, retained no inconsiderable portion of their power and estates until the year 1689, when their immense possessions were confiscated, and the last earl became an exile, like the monarch whose cause he had supported. The castle, village, mills, fairs, and customs of Blarney, with the land and park thereunto belonging, containing 1400 acres, were "set up by cant" in the year 1702, purchased by Sir Richard Pyne, Lord Chief Justice, for £3000, and by him disposed of, the following year, to General Sir James Jeffreys, in whose family the property continues. Altho the walls of this castle are still strong, many of the outworks have long since been leveled; the plow has passed over their foundations, and "the stones of which they were built have been used in repairing the turnpike-roads."

MUCROSS ABBEY*

BY MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL

The abbey of Mucross adjoins the pretty village of Cloghreen, [in Kerry] and is in the demesne of Henry Arthur Herbert, Esq., which includes the whole of the peninsula. The site was chosen with the usual judgment and taste of "the monks of old," who invariably selected the pleasantest of all pleasant places. The original name was Irelough-and it appears that long prior to the erection of this, now ruined structure, a church existed in the same spot, which was consumed by fire in 1191. The abbey was built for Franciscan monks, according to Archdall, in 1440; but the annals of the Four Masters give its date a century earlier: both, however, ascribe its foundation to one of the Mac Carthys, princes of Desmond. It was several times repaired, and once subsequently to the Reformation, as we learn from the inscription on a stone let into the north wall of the choir.

The building consists of two principal partsthe convent and the church. The church is about one hundred feet in length and twenty-four in breadth; the steeple, which stands between the nave and the chancel, rests on four high and slender pointed arches. The principal entrance is by a handsome pointed door-way, luxuriantly overgrown with ivy, through which is seen the great eastern window. The intermediate space, as indeed every part of the ruined edifice, is filled with *From "Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, Etc."

tombs, the greater number distinguished only by a slight elevation from the mold around them; but some containing containing inscriptions to direct the stranger where especial honor should be paid. A large modern tomb, in the center of the choir, covers the vault, in which in ancient times were interred the Mac Carthys Mor, and more recently the O'Donoghue Mor of the Glens, whose descendants were buried here so late as the year 1833.

Close to this tomb, but on a level with the earth, is the slab which formerly covered the vault. It is without inscription, but bears the arms of the Earl of Clancarty. The convent as well as the church is in very tolerable preservation; and Mr. Herbert has taken especial care, as far as he can, to balk the consumer, time, of the remnants of his glorious feast. He has repaired the foundations in some parts and the parapets in others, and so judiciously that the eye is never annoyed by the intrusion of the new among the old; the ivy furnishing him with a ready means for hiding the unhallowed brick and mortar from the sight. In his "caretaker," too, he has a valuable auxiliary; and a watch is set, first to discover tokens of decay, then to prevent their spread, and then to twist and twine the young shoots of the aged trees over and around them.

The dormitories, the kitchen, the refectory, the cellars, the infirmary, and other chambers, are still in a state of comparative preservation; the upper rooms are unroofed; and the coarse grass grows abundantly among them. The great fireplace of the refectory is curious and interesting -affording evidence that the good monks were