NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, 29 May 1919, Page 26

NOTES

. ... ...... ... . ■ . - The Land o* Dreams c j A bullet’s flight away from the old home, the great grey shell of the old Abbey of St. Mary stood on a hill over the town, looking down, on the broad waters of the Barrow. ’ An ugly, cold Protestant church had been grafted into the." ancient nave; • Protestants came and went—in small numbers —on the gravelled pathway between their church and the road. But behind the Abbey and all around it were the hallowed, numerous, appealing graves of our dead. There were dark, dank caves beneath * the ruins, and, mysterious iron gates through which one looked into . darkness and , the unknown. It was often said that if one knew the way it was possible to go under the river from St.-Mary’s to the ruined church on .a hill opposite, in the County Kilkenny. Some. said there were-galleries , leading to the two castles that could be seen among the woods by the Barrow, one a mile above, the other a mile below, the town. Sometimes when we, rowed do\yn . the stream we got as far as the meeting of the waters, where ’ the ' Barrow, Nore, and ’ Suir, three daughters of an old King,* embraced again arid went out to sea together, and, 'amid acres .of rich pasture lands where ; the sleek kino stood knee-deep in the lush “grass/ we saw the magnificent ,: remains ; of Dunbrody, the 'home of the first Norman ; Cistercian : monks - in Wexford. And even when we were ' very young ’we :; knew that these ’ monks Were not loved by our people/" and 1 that • their last Abbot, one Walter 1 Devereux, was a renegade, than which there is not r thing baser or lower to an Irish boy’s imagination. On other ' days, in dead sum-/ mers, we went through the Waving ferns and bracken arid /under* the : immemorial trees to see the sister-abbey at .Tiriterh; - where,' when the English monks were gone, 5 lived Sir Caesar, and Sir Anthony, and Sir 1 John Col- ! i dough/ who were all. more Irish than Irish them- K | selves^the best proof of which is that John died with; I the men ; of • ’9B;;iri Wexford. /• From Tintern' ■ it was | only a short • distance ' C across ? the v water to Barinbw/" \ where there are still ! ruins of Ji an old church arid a / few ’ romantic tombstones bh which you may -see Fthb- ; figures of dead ; ladies' and of knights with feet crossed < to show "that they had niade the Crusade; - And; in the county all found there were countless taths/f and, | here 'arid there/ a ’Druid’S - altar', besides fairy'thorns ; and wells blessed in days before 1 even St. Patrick came \ to Convert the whole of Ireland : for \ve : Wexfbfd. people \ do pot forget that we had bin* St. Brecari and bur St. 1 I Vaux. Fortunately’ all those who could talk to a boy | abotft thbse mohuriierits/> of the past were not ■ gone in : ; our*rtime^ r^ttd^ s often indeed tangled ’ up? with fisherI men’s 1 tales of/weird wrecks 1 andbells thatrang before f stcfms /frbm the spireS of, But Bahnbw 1 , thefe were I many Tra'ditibris" edncernihg thb castles arid the; abbeys I and 1 the raths that c we knew sb well that they were

like friends, Thus, in the heart of the most prosperous and developed • Irish i county j lay? a - lamd, of ?;day dreasns such? as v you t might seek ,in vain all the b world? oyer-; j Some day, in a free Ireland, we hope a pen worthy; of the- task will make ' the {.past, live . again and perpetuate the dreams that never came near enough for r in,.«,w v .I'V' if'LOill Oil n£s6o tell ttf.l-JHSJJirj us to grasp them. ... • . , .. . ~r . ;t - A . £ jj;2ctxt atvjtea/ mod »w jtAi. ■<!jn |c »iit biu tfjeuo-ft&j itio j-suii hns sijoj Shane Leslie’s a Lough Derg , |j 3VV , } ,j %i u< w tl&id'js xj That brilliant writer, Shane- Leslie, has; done for Lough Derg what we want done for -..Wexford;-t He has gathered together,: from the spirit i-of the old Celtic monasteries and from! books in old libraries half a dozen > tales that are . like.! day-dreams of the Celtic past,-.wist- ' ful, things, drenched with tears, i arousing old memories > of forgotten i saints and kings, : ; and old visions of . the-. prayerful, mortified lives of the blessed ; ones who sowed s so; w 1 j the ■ seed of i the - faith in ; Erin, s As - a foreword ; he has ; this :;> - d ■ -u'! '?-ons: Hark’, amid the prayers of -pilgrims plying 1 ‘ ' : ; Hound the isles of shrine and Bed, II ow the V'ind is sadder for thy crying Of the an remembered' dHaff .W\ When the hunger scourged ''across the breakers, When the ships of exile sped*- ■• ■ .■ St-c-A ? S*lT if - Hear them crying , Will ye all forsake ’ .- to the, sea-s that sweep, the ■(leading ■- . ‘‘Brothers, where yonr footsteps pass unheeding "... Once bur paths and lifeways led, , ...... ... Brothers'; pray ere ye be gone and needing '-' " Mass ' and dirges for the. dead. .!!,;. .... ‘Tray for ns where Patrick’s lips were praying; ' Pray fur ns by Brendan's bed: ".’ k .';- ' Soon in turn your children may he laying You among the watchful dead.” - • Almost mag gov hear the icon half-sleepers '' ' : 'ijtiii'F-ronC- their'purgatorial bed L+hhj y. v. v; or ■’ Crying unto God“ 0 Reaper ,' reap us * -- xr.oy: Lest we droop for ever dead." ; St. Patrick’s! Purgatory ??.""". '"! ?"!??' ?!'?' :! That little lake amid the hills of Tir-conail, which , was the scene, of strange pagan rites in the days of ; the Druids, has 'a history that is now lost in the twilight of the past, and ,of which only the cairns on the. hills,, and some, stray charms and legends remain. When St. Patrick came to -Lough Derg he sanctified it .by prayer . and fasting, and made of this place v awe and < dread , unspeakable a shrine, in .which his memory lives to-day. There, is ,no other place in ; Ireland like it. There, still the austerities of .the old saints are, practised by. the pious pilgrims; there alone,- can you get a. true idea of - how they did- fast and pray ,in . ancient times., The r cave T where..the Saint saw,the vision l of n Purgatory, the , little lake, the ; .church r , the,, stony,: shores that - sacred feet? once pressed are still associated with the strong penitential, exercises and the long, vigils and prayers of Ireland’s early saints. , There you will be near the spirit , of St. Ciaran, : who would - immerse himself in, a vat of cold water for the love God ;, of s St. . Fintan, who ate , but barely bread and drank but cold water,; pf;.Cprmac, v Bishop King..and, Martyr, who .sang,; three .times, -fifty , psalms in the fountain ,of Lough Jarh., fe In the Middle t Ages and later Lough 4 Derg was famous all'oyer Europe. You- : will -find its name on the, pages..of the Spanish poet, o ,Calderon, and of j; the Italian poet, Ariosto, , Princes,;,--Prelates,- pilgrims of high . and . low degree, came to the; shrine -from all .parts;- of Europe in, order to do penance and sanctify themselves. -s (; And many are the, legends preserved in old :) libraries s concerning the comings, and goings of 5 men and women now long, dead and .fjorgotteh of i all save God, whoip. they came Jhither to prppitiat© ; and to adore in the . way, marked out by God's “Love-friend, * % In Lough Derg you wilLgrecpgnise why it is that the Irish faith could ■ not ( be destroyed and, why - the love of God among the .Irish ? is stronger than, death. ' . _