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Updated: May 10, 2025
Few travellers ever see the lakes from this point, because it is difficult to attain; but I had been there, and knowing its superiority over every other, I wished to give my comrade a taste of the exquisite pleasure derivable from a scene of beauty unsurpassed in the world. There is no spot, in or near Killarney, from which its wonderful scenery can be seen to such advantage.
The latter at once walked to the table, and, taking up the tumbler, filled it with water from the jug; after which it wound up the clock, and, sitting down on a seat in front of the piano, played "Killarney" and "The Star-spangled Banner."
"The natural lakes and the peat-holes the latter from twelve to twenty feet deep formed extensive water-basins. Some of you will remember the turf diggings in the great bog in Ireland, as we passed through it on our way to Killarney. The peat was not dug out in trenches, but the entire surface of the land was skimmed off, just as workmen in the city dig away a hill.
At the time when the Fenian scare was damaging Killarney as a tourist resort, Sir Michael Morris as he then was was staying at Morley's Hotel in London, and saw in the American paper lying on the table a vivid account of how the Fenian army had attacked a British garrison, and would have easily captured the stronghold had not an overpowering force of English cavalry and artillery hurried up to deliver the besieged.
This lake exceeds anything I ever beheld in beauty, with the exception of the arbutus islands of Killarney. It is long and narrow, and has the appearance of a mighty river winding among the mountains and the forests. We sailed from the town of Como to a tract of country called the Tremezina, and saw the various aspects presented by that part of the lake.
The day after the return of Prince Alfred from the West Indies, the Queen and the Prince, their second son and the Princesses Alice and Helena, sailed from Holyhead in the Victoria and Albert for Kingstown. This visit to Ireland meant also the royal presence on a field-day in the Curragh camp, where the Prince of Wales was serving, and a run down to Killarney in very hot weather.
On the right-hand side of the road would be a precipice covered with a thousand trees, or a green rocky flat, with a reedy mere in the midst, and other mountains rising as far as we could see.... And so it was that we rode by dark old Mangerton, then presently past Mucross, and then through two miles of avenues of lime-trees, by numerous lodges and gentlemen's seats, across an old bridge, where you see the mountains again and the lake, until, by Lord Kenmare's house, a hideous row of houses informed us that we were in Killarney.
Kerry has always been the last place to follow a popular movement, and the last to relinquish it. As the French Revolution and its effects on Ireland were not heard of in Kerry till long after the establishment of the Empire, so was Ross Castle, on the lower lake at Killarney, the last stronghold subdued by Ludlow; and so also was Kerry the last stronghold of Fenianism.
From this, in fact, arises the luxuriant vegetation of Killarney; to this, indeed, the lakes owe their water supply. The cold crests of the mountains also aid in the work of condensation.
"Lordy! Lordy!" breathed Kenny in delight. "The lake is thatched with moonbeams!" And he thought of course of the legend of Killarney. "'Twas a valley like this, Joan," he said, "all rich with fields and pastures of green and there in the heart of it always was the fairy fountain covered with a stone to keep the water from rushin' out. And then came the knight." His eyes pleaded.
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