CHAPTER X.

KILLARNEY.

Excursion to Adrigoll-Description of Scenery-Hungry Mountain-Bed of Cataract-Dumb Church-Disappearance of Protestants-Mary BlakeRoss M'Owen-Old Hospitality-Salmon caught and boiled in the same Kitchen-Bad Consequences of a poor Man marrying a proud Lady-Departure from Glengariff-Ascent of Esk Mountain-Alpine SceneryNumerous Lakes-Noble Views-Risks run in Passage of the Mountain-A Lake turned into a Vat of Beer-A Priest's Power and Self-denialArrival in Kerry-Contrast between corporate and private Property-Good and bad Roads-Kenmare-New Road to Killarney-Magnificent Views-Favourable State of the Atmosphere-Cheap way of seeing Killarney-Arrival there-A Day well employed.

On the following day my kind entertainers took an excursion towards the fall of Adrigoll, or Hungry Mountain. We passed between the sea-shore and the Sugar-loaf mountain, along a new road made to Bearhaven, on the M'Adamized plan; and nothing could be finer than the road, or grander than the outline of the mountain scenery-to the left, the broad expanse of Bantry Bay,-to the right, the mountains. We had no longer in view the woods of Glengariff; no improvement, no cultivation. At length we came to where the continuous line of hills was interrupted,

and room left for an open valley through which a stream descended and joined the sea. A pretty bridge, a sort of a village, a church, and close to the sea-shore a comfortable parsonage house, and straight before us Hungry Mountain, with the bed of the waterfall, like a dark deep chasm, indented down its side. But the weather had already set in with peculiar dryness, and there was not a rill of water where in winter is a fearful cataract.

"Did you ever see a dumb church?" said one of my companions.

"And pray what is a dumb church?"

Why it is a church lately built and consecrated; but which has now no service in it, and is let to go to neglect and ruin."

"And how long is this church built, for it, at this distance, from its position, colour, and elevation, appears to be quite a modern structure ?"

"It is not more than ten or twelve

the present primate consecrated it."

years erected;

"Come, let us take a walk to see this first specimen that has come under my observation of a dumb church."

Accordingly, the greater number of the party proceeded to take a view of the church.

As we ap

A DUMB CHURCH.

343

proached it, the desolation became more and more conspicuous; the windows all broken, sashes destroyed, shutters torn off their hinges, roof all stripped.

You might have supposed that the French when they came into Bantry bay thirty years ago, had landed here and made this their bivouac for the night, and left it in the morning, a specimen of what ruthless invaders could perpetrate: but it was no such thing; this place of worship was not thought of until twenty years after the French, by God's providence, were driven from our shores. Its ruin, then, was quite a native work; and there it stood a monument of desertion by Protestants, and of demolition by Romanists. We climbed in by one of the windows, a goat could have got in, and did get in, the same way;-and what desolation!—the pews torn to pieces, the floor ripped up, and nothing remaining entire but the pulpit, it seemed left in mockery of the ruin it overhangs. Into it I ascended, and was moved to address Him who heareth prayer, that he might put it into the hearts of those having authority to restore this desecrated structure, to repair the place where once his honour dwelt; and that in future times the truth of the Gospel and unsearchable riches

of Christ should be preached with power and converting influence, from this now deserted pulpit.* When we reached the entrance door of this degraded temple, it appeared that, for some years at least, no entrance had been made by this way; for long stalactites were hanging down from the door-way, formed by the slow combination of water with the lime of the damp wall; and there they hung like long white fingers, forbidding the door to open on its rusty hinges. Whatever was the cause of all this, my wish was that I could have the use of Aladdin's lamp, and by giving it a good scrubbing, induce the slave of the lamp to lift up that dumb church, and exhibit it for half an hour to the Lord Primate of Ireland.

But this is not explaining the matter; whence all this? what made the church dumb? where the parson? where the church-wardens, and the Protestant parishioners? Good Mr. Reader, not so fast, it is easier to exhibit effects than to explain causes. I was but a stranger. I could only obtain hearsays, and perhaps prejudiced accounts. The parsonage house I saw about a mile off; it looked at that dis

* There is now a good church, a good minister, and a good congregation. 1839.

tance snug and comfortable; a nice green lawn; many trees; prettily, nay, beautifully situated on the shore of the sea, and surrounded by the sublime and various mountains. I heard stories, perhaps not true, how the greater part of the Protestants had turned Catholics; how even the clerk of the parish had shown the example, and in order to procure his salary, had actually torn up the pews of the church and sold the timber. I heard how, some years ago, perhaps a hundred, a clergyman, on being asked, whether in his ministration he had been successful in inducing the natives of his parish to renounce their Romish superstition! laughed outright, "What, convert the Papists! No, no! On the contrary, all the Protestants somehow or other are turning Papists."

This certainly would be so unlucky a confession from any Protestant minister, that I hope it never took place. But this is quite certain, that many Protestants in this district have within this halfcentury joined the Church of Rome; and the loyal and high-spirited yeomanry, that the piety and patriotism of the Boyles, &c. &c. had planted in these districts, has, under the neglect of careless