A little further
west is the classic little town of Ballyporeen, which has danced to
music that was not wedding music more than once during late years.
After we left Clogheen and struck through a wide plain for Cahir the
moon came out and touched the dark mountains with silver and they folded
away their gray robes until we should return. Those eight Irish miles
from Clogheen to Cahir were the longest miles I have ever met with,
exceeding in length the famous Rasharken miles. Here in a rambling,
forsaken like assemblage of stairs and passages, called a hotel, we
found a room and I rested for the remaining hours of the night. I never
bestowed whip money so grudgingly as I did on the sullen driver who
brought me through the Knock-me-le-down mountains. Under his care all my
bags and parcels came to grief in the most innocently unaccountable way
and were carried in in a wrecked condition.
In the morning the melancholy waiter who set my little breakfast at one
end of a desert of a table in a dusty wilderness of a room, commenced
bemoaning over the poverty of the country. It was a market morning and
there were many asses, creels and carts with fish drawn up in the market
place. I ventured to suggest a fish for breakfast, which was an utter
impossibility. Cahir has a handsome old castle standing close to its
main street which is still inhabited.
We dropped down by rail through Clonmel to Waterford, our companions by
the way being all returning tourists, English and Welsh people over for
a holiday to see the disturbances in Ireland, which they had always
missed seeing some way. We amused ourselves in drawing comparisons
between the lines of rail in Ireland and those in other countries to the
total disparagement of Irish railways. They spoke of the railways in
England and Wales, and I exalted Canadian railways.
Waterford seemed a pretty, lively, bustling town. The river seemed alive
with boats; there was a good deal of building going on near the depot,
and the people had a step and an air as if they had something to do and
were hurrying to do it. It looked very unlike its ancient name, which
was, I am told, the Glen of Lamentation. Tales still linger here of the
sack of Waterford by Strongbow and his marriage to Princess Eva, and of
the landing here of Henry the Second when he came to take possession.
