Читать книгу The Charm of Ireland - Burton Egbert Stevenson - Страница 4

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF AN ANCIENT CAPITAL

I know Dublin somewhat better now, and I no longer think of it as a gay town—rather as a supremely tragic one. Turn the corner from any of the main thoroughfares, and you will soon find yourself in a foul alley of crowded tenements, in the midst of a misery and squalor that wring the heart. You will wonder to see women laughing together and children playing on the damp pavements. It is thin laughter and half-hearted play; and yet, even here, there is a certain air of carelessness and good-humour. It may be that these miserable people do not realise their misery. Cleanliness is perhaps as painful to a person reared in dirt as dirt is to a person reared in cleanliness; slum dwellers, I suppose, do not notice the slum odour; a few decades of slum life must inevitably destroy or, at least, deaden those niceties of smell and taste and feeling which play so large a part in the lives of the well-to-do. And it is fortunate that this is so. But one threads one's way along these squalid streets, shuddering at thought of the vice and disease that must be bred there, and mourning, not so much for their unfortunate inhabitants, as for the blindness and inefficiency of the social order which permits them to exist.

These appalling alleys are always in the background of my thoughts of Dublin; and yet it is not them I see when I close my eyes and evoke my memory of that ancient town. The picture which comes before me then is of the wide O'Connell Bridge, with the great monument of the Liberator guarding one end of it, and the curving street beyond, sweeping past the tall portico of the old Parliament House, past the time-stained buildings of Trinity College, and so on along busy Grafton Street to St. Stephen's Green. This is the most beautiful and characteristic of Dublin's vistas; and one visualises it instinctively when one thinks of Dublin, just as one visualises the boulevards and the Avenue de l'Opera when one thinks of Paris, or the Dam and the Kalverstraat when one thinks of Amsterdam, or the Strand and Piccadilly when one thinks of London.

© Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. DUBLIN CASTLE O'CONNELL, ALIAS SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN

It was in this direction that our feet turned, that bright Sunday morning, when we sallied forth for the first time to see the town, and we were impressed almost at once by two things: the unusual height of Dublin policemen and the eccentric attitudes of Dublin statues. There are few finer bodies of men in the world than the Royal Irish Constabulary. They are as spruce and erect as grenadiers; throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, I never saw a fat one. They are recruited all over the island, and the tallest ones must be selected for the Dublin service. At any rate, they tower a full head above the average citizen of that town, and, in consequence, there is always one or more of them in sight.

As for the statues, they sadly lack repose. The O'Connell Monument is a riot of action, though the Liberator himself is comparatively cool and self-possessed. Just beyond the bridge, Smith O'Brien poses with leg advanced and head flung back and arms proudly folded in the traditional attitude of haughty defiance; opposite him, Henry Grattan stands with hand outstretched midway of an eloquent period; and, as you explore the streets, you will see other patriots in bronze or marble doing everything but what they should be doing: standing quietly and making the best of a bad job. For to stand atop a shaft of stone and endure the public gaze eternally is a bad job, even for a statue. But a good statue conceals its feeling of absurdity and ennui under a dignified exterior. Most Dublin ones do not. They are visibly irked and impatient.

I mentioned this interesting fact, one evening, to a Dublin woman of my acquaintance, and she laughed.

"'Tis true they are impatient," she agreed. "But perhaps they will quiet down once the government stops calling O'Connell Street by a wrong name."

"Where is O'Connell Street?" I asked, for I had failed to notice it.

"Your hotel faces it; but the government names it after a viceroy whom nobody has thought of for a hundred years."

It was then I understood the confusion of the man who had carried our bags up from the station; for to every good Irishman Sackville Street is always O'Connell Street, in honour of the patriot whose monument adorns it. That it is still known officially as Sackville Street is probably due to the inertia of a government always suspicious of change, rather than to any desire to honour a forgotten viceroy, or hesitation to add another leaf to O'Connell's crown of laurel. O'Connell himself, in some critical quarters, is not quite the idol he once was; but Irishmen agree that the wide and beautiful street which is the centre of Dublin should be named after him, and his monument, at one end of it, is still the natural rallying-place for the populace, whose orators love to illustrate their periods by pointing to the figure of Erin breaking her fetters at its base.

At the other end of the street is a very noble memorial of another patriot—Charles Stewart Parnell. Parnell's fame burns brighter and clearer with the passing years, and this memorial, so simple, so dignified, and yet so full of meaning, is one which no American can contemplate without a thrill of pride, for it is the work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens—a consummate artist, American to the marrow, though Dublin-born, of a French father and an Irish mother.

Midway of this great thoroughfare, rises the Nelson Pillar—a fluted column springing a hundred and fifty feet into the air, dominating the whole town. I do not understand why Nelson should have been so signally honoured in the Irish capital, for there was nothing Irish about him, either in birth or temperament. Perhaps that is the reason. Stranger things have happened in Ireland. And indeed it is no stranger than the whim which set another statue to face the old Parliament House—a gilded atrocity representing William of Orange, garbed as a Roman emperor in laurel-wreath and toga, bestriding a sway-backed horse!

The Home Rule Parliament will no doubt promptly change the street signs along the broad thoroughfare which forms the heart of Dublin; but meanwhile everybody agrees in calling the bridge O'Connell's monument faces by his name. A very handsome bridge it is, and there is a beautiful view from it, both up and down the river. Dublin is like Paris, in that it is built on both sides of a river, and the view from this point reminds one somewhat of the view along the Seine. There are many bridges, and many domed buildings, many boats moored to the quays—and many patient fishermen waiting for a bite!

A short distance beyond the bridge is the great granite structure with curving façade and rain-blackened columns, a queer but impressive jumble of all the Greek orders, which now houses the Bank of Ireland. Time was when it housed the Irish Parliament, and that time may come again; meanwhile it stands as a monument to the classical taste of the eighteenth century and its fondness for allegorical sculpture—Erin supported by Fidelity and Commerce, and Fortitude supported by Justice and Liberty! Those seem to me to be mixed allegories, but never mind.

Those later days of the eighteenth century were the days of Dublin's glory, for then she was really, as well as sentimentally, the capital of Ireland. Her most beautiful public buildings date from that period, and all her fine spacious dwelling-houses. After the Union, nobody built wide spacious dwellings, but only narrow mean ones, to suit the new spirit; and the new spirit was so incapable of living in the lovely old houses that it turned them into tenements, and put a family in every room, without any sense of crowding! I sometimes fear that the old spirit is gone for good, and that not even independence can bring it back to Dublin.

It was the Irish House of Commons which, in 1752, provided the funds for the new home of Trinity College, just across the street—a great pile of time-worn buildings, also in the classic style, and rather dull; but it is worth while to go in through the great gateway for a look at the outer and inner quadrangles.

Beyond the college stretches Grafton Street, the principal shopping-street of Dublin, and at its head is St. Stephen's Green, a pretty park, with some beautiful eighteenth century houses looking down upon it. This was the centre of the fashionable residence district in the old days, and the walk along the north side was the "Beaux Walk." Such of the residences as remain are mostly given over to public purposes, and the square itself is redolently British; for there is a statue of George II in the centre, and one of Lord Eglinton not far away, and a triumphal arch commemorating the war in South Africa. But, if you look closely, you may find the inconspicuous bust of James Clarence Mangan, who coughed his life out in the Dublin slums while Tom Moore—who was also born here—was posing before fine London ladies; and Mangan had this reward, that he remained sincere and honest and warmly Irish to the last, a true bard of Erin, and one whose memory she does well to cherish. How feeble Tom Moore's tinklings sound beside the white passion of "Dark Rosaleen!"

Over dews, over sands,

Will I fly for your weal: Your holy, delicate white hands Shall girdle me with steel. At home in your emerald bowers, From morning's dawn till e'en, You'll pray for me, my flower of flowers, My dark Rosaleen! My own Rosaleen! You'll think of me through daylight's hours, My virgin flower, my flower of flowers, My dark Rosaleen!

A short walk down Kildare Street leads to a handsome, wide-flung building with a court in front, once the mansion of the Duke of Leinster, but now occupied by the Royal Dublin Society. The wing at the right is the Science and Art Museum, that to the left the National Library. The latter is scarcely worth a visit, unless there is some reading you wish to do, but we shall have to spend some hours in the museum.

On this Sunday morning, however, Betty and I walked on through to Leinster Lawn, a pleasant enclosed square, with gravelled walks and gardens gay with flowers, but marred with many statues; and here you will note that a Victorian government spent a huge sum in commemorating the virtues of the Prince Consort. We contemplated it for a while, and then went on to the great building which closes in the park on the north, and which houses the National Gallery of Ireland. We found the collection surprisingly good. It is especially rich in Dutch art, and possesses three Rembrandts, one of an old and another of a young man, and the other showing some shepherds building a fire—just such a subject as Rembrandt loved. And there is a good Teniers, and an inimitable canvas by Jan Steen, "The Village School." There are also a number of pictures by Italian masters, but these did not seem to me so noteworthy.

This general collection of paintings is on the upper floor. The ground floor houses the National Portrait Gallery, composed for the most part of mediocre presentments of mediocre personalities, but with a high light here and there worth searching for. Sir Godfrey Kneller's portrait of Dick Steele is there, and Holbein's Henry Wyatt, and Zuccaro's Raleigh, and there are three or four portraits by Lely and Reynolds, but not, I should say, in their best style.

Let me add here that there is in Dublin another picture gallery well worth a visit. This is the Municipal Gallery, housed in a beautiful old mansion in Harcourt Street—another memorial of spacious eighteenth century days, where that famous judge and duellist, Lord Clonmell, lived. The house itself would be worth seeing, even if there were no pictures in it, for it is a splendid example of Georgian domestic architecture; but there are, besides some beautiful examples of the Barbizon school, a number of modern Irish paintings which promise much for the future of Irish art.

The day was so bright and warm that it seemed a pity to spend the whole of it in town, so, after lunch, we took a tram for the Hill of Howth. Most of the tram lines of the city start from the Nelson Pillar, so we had only to cross the street to the starting point.

There seems to be a considerable difference of opinion as to the correct pronunciation of "Howth." Perhaps that is because it is a Danish word—hoved, a head—the Danes having left the mark of their presence in the names of places all over Ireland, even in the names of three of its four provinces. Only far Connaught escaped the stigma. At any rate, when I asked a policeman which tram to take for Howth, I pronounced the word as it is spelt, to rhyme with "south." He corrected me at once.

"'Tis the Hill of Hooth ye mean," he said, making it rhyme with "youth," "and that's your tram yonder."

We clambered up the steep stairway at the back to a seat on top, and presently we started; and then the conductor came around with tickets, and asked where we were going—in Ireland, as everywhere else in Europe, the fare is gauged by the length of the journey.

"To the Hill of Hooth," I answered proudly.

"Ah, the Hill of Hōth, is it," he said, making it rhyme with "both," and he picked out the correct tickets from the assortment he carried, punched them and gave them to me.

We used the pronunciations indiscriminately, after that, and I never learned which is right, though I suspect that "Hōth" is.

Howth is a great detached block of mountain thrown down, by some caprice of nature, at the sea-ward edge of a level plain to the north of Dublin Bay, where it stands very bold and beautiful. It is some eight or ten miles from Dublin, and the tram thither runs through the north-eastern part of the town, and then emerges on the Strand, with Dublin Bay on one side and many handsome residences on the other. Away across the bay are the beautiful green masses of the Wicklow hills, and presently you come to Clontarf, where, on Good Friday, nine hundred years ago, the Irish, under their great king, Brian Boru, met the marshalled legions of the Danes, and broke their power in Ireland.

For the Danes had sailed up the Liffey a century before, and built a castle to command the ford, somewhere near the site of the present castle; and about this stronghold grew up the city of Dublin; and then they built other forts to the south and north and west; bands of raiders marched to and fro over the country, plundering shrines, despoiling monasteries, levying tribute, until all Ireland, with the exception of the extreme west, crouched under the Danish power. The Danes, it should be remembered, were the terror and scourge of Europe, and since the Ireland of that day was the richest country of Europe in churches and monasteries and other religious establishments, it was upon Ireland the Pagan invaders left their deepest mark.

For a hundred years they had their will of the land, crushing down such weak and divided resistance as the people were able to offer. And then came Brian Boru, a man strong enough to draw all Ireland into one alliance, and at last the Danes met a resistance which made them pause. For twenty years, Brian waged desperate war against them, defeating them sometimes, sometimes defeated; but never giving up, though often besought to do so; retiring to his bogs until he could recruit his shattered forces, and then, as soon as might be, falling again upon his enemies.

In the intervals of this warfare, he devoted himself to setting his kingdom in order, and to such good purpose that, as the historians tell—and Tom Moore rhymes—a lone woman could make the circuit of Erin, without fear of molestation, though decked with gold and jewels. Brian did more than that—and this is the measure of his greatness: he built roads, erected churches and monasteries to replace those destroyed by the Danes, founded schools to which men came from far countries, and "sent professors and masters to teach wisdom and knowledge and to buy books beyond the sea."

It was in 1014 that the final great battle of Clontarf was fought. Both sides, realising that this was the decisive struggle, had mustered every man they could. With Brian were his own Munster men, and the forces of O'Rourke and Hy Many from Connaught, and Malachy with his Meath legions, and Desmond with the men of Kerry and West Cork—a wild host, with discipline of the rudest, trusting for victory not to strategy or tactics, but to sheer strength of arm.

And what a muster of Danes there was! Not only the Danes of Dublin, but the hosts from the Orkneys and "from every island on the Scottish main, from Uist to Arran"; and even from far-off Scandinavia and Iceland the levies hastened, led by "Thornstein, Hall of the Side's son, and Halldor, son of Gudmund the Powerful, and many other northern champions of lesser note." It is characteristic of Irish history through the ages that, on this great day, one Irish province cast in its lot with its country's enemies, for the battalions of Leinster formed side by side with the Danes.

There are Danish and Irish sagas which tell the story of that fight, and blood-stirring tales they are. Brian Boru, bent under the weight of seventy-four years, took station apart on a bit of rising ground, and there, kneeling on a cushion, alternately prayed and watched the battle. The Danes had the better of it, at first, hewing down their adversaries with their gleaming axes; but the Munster men stood firm and fought so savagely that at last the Danes broke and fled. One party of them passed the little hill where Brian knelt, and paused long enough to cut him down; but his life's work was done: the power of the Danes was broken, and there was no longer need to fear that the Norsemen would rule Ireland.

Just north of Clontarf parish church stands an ancient yew, and tradition says that it was under this tree that Brian's body was laid by his men. The tradition may be true or not, but the wonderful tree, the most venerable in Ireland, is worth turning aside a few moments to visit. It stands in private grounds, and permission must be asked to enter, but it is seldom refused.

Like too many other spots in Ireland, Clontarf has its tragic memory as well as its glorious one, for it was here that O'Connell's Home Rule movement, to which thousands of men had pledged fealty, dropped suddenly to pieces because of the indecision of its leader at the first hint of British opposition. But there is no need to tell that story here.

The town of Howth consists of one long street running around the base of the hill and facing the harbour and the Irish Sea. The harbour is enclosed by impressive piers of granite, and was once a busy place, for it was the Dublin packet station until Kingstown superseded it. Since then, the entrance has silted up, and now nothing rides at anchor there but small yachts and fishing-boats. On that clear and sunny day the view was very beautiful. A mile to the north was the rugged little island known as Ireland's Eye, and far away beyond the long stretch of low coast loomed the purple masses of the Carlingford hills. Away to the east stretched the Irish Sea, greenish-grey in the sunlight, with a white foam-crest here and there, and to the south lay Dublin Bay against the background of the Wicklow mountains.

High on a cliff above the haven lie the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, and we presently clambered up to them. We found them encircled by an embattled wall, but a neighbourhood urchin directed us to a pile of tumbledown buildings at the corner as the home of the caretaker. He was not there, but his wife was, as well as a large collection of ragged children, and one of these, a girl of ten or thereabouts, was sent by her mother to do the honours. She was very shy at first, but her tongue finally loosened, and we were enraptured with her soft voice and beautiful accent. Her father was a fisherman, she said; they were all fisher-families who lived in the tumble-down pile, which was once a part of the abbey and so comes legitimately by its decay, since it is four or five hundred years old, and has apparently never been repaired.

Of the abbey church itself, only the walls remain, and they are the survivals of three distinct buildings. The west front is part of the original Danish church, built in 1042, and is pierced by a small round-headed doorway, above which rises an open bell-turret. In 1235, the Archbishop of Dublin rebuilt the Danish church, retaining only its façade. The interior, as he remodelled it, consisted of a nave and one aisle, separated by three pointed arches. They are still there, very low and rude, marking the length of the Archbishop's church. Two centuries later, this was found too small, and so the church was lengthened by the addition of three more arches. They also are still standing, and are both higher and wider than the first three. The tracery in the east window is still intact, and is very graceful, as may be seen by the photograph opposite this page, in which the variation in the arches is also well shown. Note also the round-headed doorway at the side, with the remains of a porch in front—a detail not often seen in old Irish churches. And, last of all, note the ruined building in the corner. Although it has no roof, it is still used as a dwelling, as the curtained window shows.

RUINS OF ST. MARY'S ABBEY, HOWTH

Just inside the east window of the church is the tomb of Christopher, nineteenth Lord Howth, who died about 1490. It is an altar tomb, bearing the recumbent figures of the knight and his lady, the former's feet resting, after the usual fashion, on his dog. Considering the vicissitudes of weather and vandalism through which they have passed, both figures are surprisingly well preserved.

The Howth peninsula still belongs to the Howth family, who trace their line direct to Sir Almericus Tristram, an Anglo-Norman knight who conquered and annexed it in 1177, and the demesne, one of the most beautiful in Ireland, lies to the west of the town. The castle, a long, battlemented building flanked with towers, is said to contain many objects of interest, but we did not get in, for the gardener informed us that it was open to the public only on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The grounds are famous for their gorgeous rhododendrons, and there is a cromlech there, under which, so legend says, lies Aideen, wife of Oscar, son of Ossian and chief hero of those redoubtable warriors, the Fianna.

In Ireland, during the summer months, sunrise and sunset are eighteen hours apart, and so, though it was rather late when we got back to the hotel, it was as light as midday. We were starting for our room, when a many-buttoned bell-boy, with a face like a cherub, who was always hovering near, stopped us and told us shyly that, if we would wait a few minutes, we could see the parade go past.

During the morning, we had noticed gaily-uniformed bands marching hither and thither, convoying little groups of people, some of them in fancy costume, and had learned that there was to be a great labour celebration somewhere, with music and much oratory. We had not thought it worth while to run it down, but we said we should be glad to see the parade, so our guide took us out to the balcony on the first floor, and then remained to talk.

"You would be from America, sir, I'm thinking," he began.

"Yes," I said.

"Then you have seen Indians!"

"Indians? Why, yes, I've seen a few."

"On the war-path?" he cried, his eyes shining with excitement.

I couldn't help laughing.

"No," I said. "They don't go on the war-path any more. They're quite tame now."

His face fell.

"But you have seen cowboys?" he persisted.

"Only in Wild West Shows," I admitted. "That's where I have seen most of my Indians."

"They're brave lads, aren't they?" and his eyes were shining again.

"Why, have you seen them?" I questioned in surprise.

"Ah, I have, sir, many times, in the moving-pictures," he explained. "It must be a fine thing to live in America!"

I found out afterwards that the Wild West film is exceedingly popular in Ireland. No show is complete without one. I saw some, later on, and most sanguinary and impossible they were; but they were always wildly applauded, and I think most Irishmen believe that the life of the average American is largely employed in fighting Indians and rescuing damsels in distress. I tried to tell the bell-boy that life in America was much like life everywhere—humdrum and matter-of-fact, with no Indians and few adventures; but I soon desisted. Why should I spoil his dream?

And then, from up the street, came the rattle and blare of martial music, and we had our first view of an Irish performer on the bass-drum. It is a remarkable and exhilarating spectacle. The drummer grasps a stick in each hand, and sometimes he pounds with both of them, and sometimes he twirls one over his head and pounds with the other, and sometimes he crosses his arms over the top of the drum and pounds that way. I suppose there is an etiquette about it, for they all conduct themselves in the same frenzied fashion, while the crowd stares fascinated. It is exhausting work, and I am told that during a long parade the drummers sometimes have to be changed two or three times. But there is never any lack of candidates.

There were thousands of men in line, that day, members of a hundred different lodges, each with its banner. Their women-folk trooped along with them, often arm-in-arm; and they trudged silently on with the slow and dogged tread of the beast of burden; and the faces of men and women alike were the pale, patient faces of those who look often in the eyes of want. It melted the heart to see them—to see their rough and toil-worn clothing, their gnarled and twisted hands, their heavy hob-nailed shoes—and to think of their treadmill lives, without hope and without beauty—just an endless struggle to keep the soul in the body. Minute after minute, for almost an hour, they filed past. What they hoped to gain, I do not know—a living wage, perhaps, since that is what labour needs most in Ireland—and what it has not yet won!

Our Buttons had watched the parade with the amused tolerance of the uniformed aristocrat.

"There's a lot of mad people in Dublin," he remarked cheerfully, as we turned to go in.