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Why, with a perfectly easy conscience, I may go and do what I please. If I get drowned in Loch Katrine what matter? If I break my neck in the Gap of Dunloe what matter? If I get lost and frozen on the steeps of Ben Nevis or Goatfell what matter?
John Fitz-Thomas, his son Maurice, eight barons, fifteen knights, and "countless numbers of common soldiers were slain." The Monastery of Tralee received the dead body of its founder and his son, while Florence McCarthy, following up his blow, captured and broke down in swift succession all the English castles in his neighbourhood, including those of Macroom, Dunnamark, Dunloe, and Killorglin.
We look with some interest at Dunloe Castle. once the residence of O'Sullivan Mor, and listen to the car-man who tells us of the glories of the three great families that owned Kerry, O'Sullivan Mor, O'Sullivan Bear and great O'Donoghoe. Of course we hear legend after legend of the threadbare tales of the Lakes.
Judging from the terse words of one of the observers, it must have been an exciting spectacle while it lasted, though it passed all too rapidly beyond the line of the beholder's longing vision. "Ye c'u'dn't tell," remarked this gentleman, sadly, in relating the accident, "which was the harse an' which the auld lady, an' which the Gap of Dunloe!"
There was quite a party going through the gap of Dunloe, which reduced the price of the trip to very little, comparatively speaking, and I was persuaded to join it. Every available spot about here has a lordly tower, a lady's bower, an old ruin or a new castle. The Workhouse is fine enough and extensive enough for a castle, and the Lunatic Asylum might be a palace for a crowned head.
We heard much of the cave of Dunloe which has many records, in the Ogham character, of Ireland in the days of the Druids. All this time we were driving along a road with bare mountains, and tree-covered mountains rising on every hand. It reminded me in some places of the long glen in Leitrim, in others of Canadian scenes among the mountains. We began to be beset by mounted men on scrubby ponies.
John Fitz-Thomas, his son Maurice, eight barons, fifteen knights, and "countless numbers of common soldiers were slain." The Monastery of Tralee received the dead body of its founder and his son, while Florence McCarthy, following up his blow, captured and broke down in swift succession all the English castles in his neighbourhood, including those of Macroom, Dunnamark, Dunloe, and Killorglin.
The interview described was repeated with slight variations, many times, when my attendant remarked: "That man leaning against the tree is John Dunloe; do you remember him?" "Certainly," I replied, "I went to school with him." Immediately approaching my early classmate I took him by the hand and said, "How are you, John?" "Why, Adlai, do you know me?" was the prompt response.
We purposed ascending the loftiest of these mountains, and not wishing to take the route by the Gap of Dunloe, we crossed the intermediate valley and began to ascend the mountain to the north, believing it to be that which we had determined to climb.
Drifting down through Ireland we heard another echo of Aunt Nancy. She had ridden on horseback through the Gap of Dunloe, no difficult feat in itself, and one achieved daily during Kallarney's tourist season by old ladies of various countries and creeds. In Aunt Nancy's case, however, it appeared that she had been able to enjoy that variety which is so gratifying a feature of human experience.
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