h at that place, and over the great gateway are
the arms of the great Earl of Cork, but these are almost the only
outward and visible signs of the historic past about the castle. Seen
from the graceful stone bridge which spans the river, its grey towers
and turrets quite excuse the youthful enthusiasm with which the Duke of
Connaught, who made a visit here when he was Prince Arthur, is said to
have written to his mother, that Lismore was "a beautiful place, very
like Windsor Castle, only much finer."
Lismore Cathedral was almost entirely rebuilt by the second Earl of Cork
three or four years after the Restoration, and has a handsome marble
spire, but there is little in it to recall the Catholic times in which
Lismore was a city of churches and a centre of Irish devotion.
The hostess of the "Devonshire Arms" gave me some excellent salmon,
fresh from the river, and a very good dinner. She bewailed the evil days
on which she has fallen, and the loss to Lismore of all that the Castle
used to mean to the people. Lady Edward Cavendish had spent a short time
here some little time ago, she said, and the people were delighted to
have her come there. "It would be a great thing for the country if all
the uproar and quarrelling could be put an end to. It did nobody any
good, least of all the poor people."
From Lismore I came back by the railway through Fermoy.
CHAPTER IX.
PORTUMNA, GALWAY, _Feb. 28._--I left Cork by an early train to-day, and
passing through the counties of Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Queen's, and
King's, reached this place after dark on a car from Parsonstown. The day
was delightfully cool and bright. I had the carriage to myself almost
all the way, and gave up all the time I could snatch from the constantly
varying and often very beautiful scenery to reading a curious pamphlet
which I picked up in Dublin entitled _Pour I'Irlande._ It purports to
have been written by a "Canadian priest" living at Lurgan in Ireland,
and to be a reply to M. de Mandat Grancey's volume, _Chez Paddy._ It is
adorned with a frontispiece representing a monster of the Cerberus type
on a monument, with three heads and three collars labelled respectively
"Flattery," "Famine," and "Coercion." On the pedestal is the
inscription--"1800 to 1887. Erected by the grateful Irish to the English
Government." The text is in keeping with the frontispiece. In a passage
devoted to the "atrocious evictions" of Glenbehy in 1887, the agent of
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