THE KING’S EMPIRE

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXV, Issue 12256, 20 February 1937, Page 2

THE KING’S EMPIRE

u; eland— a run round st. I’ATRICK’S ISLE St. Patrick’s grave may be seen at Downpatrick, a rough stone lying over the bones of the saint whose name is known from north to south and east to west. His bell is still treasured after 14 DO years, and wherever we go we find his name reverenced. Let us run round his land—to the 13th century ruins of Ardfert Abbey in County Kerry, the ivy-mantled tower and the noble group of five east lancets' in a fair setting of trees: to Mellifont in County Louth where the walls of the monastery have stood for 700 years, and are still noble; to "Boyle Abbey, shattered nearly 30 generations ago, and again despoiled by Cromwell’s soldiers; to the great natural rock of Cashel in County Tipperary (do you remember the old war-tiine song?) crowned with its splendid ruins, some of them dating from 1134. We come to the potato fields where backs ache at harvest-time. We watch the peat-cutters at work. We see the folk going to mass—and catch sight of the priest walking down the middle of the road. Here js a cottage of a peasant, with old granny sitting by the turf fire, the pan hanging from the reckon; and here is a shepherd with his sheep, his wife with an old shawl over her head and shoulders.

We have time for a glance down the valley o£ the Blackwater River, a glorious spot indeed; and now we look down on Killarney’s Lake, as lovely as the song says it is. Greatly daring, we cross the rope bridge at Carrick-a-Rede in County Antrim; admire the vale of Glendalough with its round tower and old ruins; and come to the harbour at Kingstown, cross the wide bridge over the Foyle at Londonderry, walk by the riverside at Cork, look up at the dome and towers of the Belfast City Hall, watch the endless traffic in Sackville Street, Dublin’s chief thoroughfare, and find that Ireland is a land which ought to be belter known than it is.