File:Romantic Ireland (1905) (14789647533).jpg

Identifier: romanticireland02mans (find matches)
Title: Romantic Ireland
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: Mansfield, M. F. (Milburg Francisco), 1871- McManus, Blanche, 1869-1935, joint author
Subjects:
Publisher: Boston, L. C. Page & company
Contributing Library: Boston College Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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, by habitual recollec-tion and frequent retreats, to nourish in hisown soul the pure love of heavenly things,and to live always in a very familiar and in-timate acquaintance with himself and in thedaily habitual practice of the most perfectvirtues. In his old age, it was his earnestdesire to commit to others the care of his dearflock, that he might be allowed to preparehimself in the exercise of holy solitude forhis great change. For this purpose, he beggedthat he might be suffered to retire to Thule,the remotest country toward the northern polethat was known to the ancients, which seemsto have been Shetland, or, according to some,Iceland or some part of Greenland; but theking guarded the ports to prevent his flight,and the saint died amidst the labours of hischarge in 525, according to the Ulster andInnisfallen annals. These islands are three in number: Inish-more, Imishmaan, and Inisheer, and containamong them such a wealth of pagan andChristian antiquities as is excelled by no lo-
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Galway and Its Bay 157 cality in Ireland of the same area: perhapsfifteen square miles in all. There is a work published in Dublin, knownas The Illustrated Programme of the So-ciety of Architects/ which contains a briefaccount of the wealth of the architectural andhistorical lore of these parts. More one couldnot wish to know unless he were profoundlyinterested, and less would not even satisfyhim if he became at all enamoured of theseislands, so full of dreary old places and quaintcustoms, to say nothing of the wealth of tra-dition and legend which hangs about it all. Westward, the nearest land is America,where so many stalwart sons of Galway —and daughters, too — have migrated. Herethe peasants still reverently believe in the far-famed land of Hy or O, — Brazil, the para-dise of the ancient pagan Irish. The praises of the great fictitious island were sung by the bards of olden time, andtradition has perpetuated its fame as a landof perpetual sunshine, abounding in rivers,forest

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