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MUNSTER 23
soft Irish," I heard a woman say this year, leaving
some platform in Cork; on her way, evidently, to a
home in the States, where she had lived, no doubt
for many years, with the hard-faced, swaggering
Yankee, who accompanied her, and who looked with
ill-concealed contempt on the tears and emotions of
the "poor soft Irish"; but she at least still kept
the homely tongue and kind heart.
From Queenstown up to Cork is one of the loveliest
waterways in the world, little towns on either bank
under the steep wooded shores, and here and there
some old castle. Cork itself may have no very great
architectural beauties, but the whole lie of the city,
spread between its hills, divided by the various
streams of that delightful river, makes a beauty of
its own: you see it best from the high ground over
against the famous steeple where hang "the bells of
Shandon that sound so grand on the pleasant waters
of the river Lee ".
"Pleasant" is the word for Cork, the county, and
its soft-voiced, quick-speaking people,
little turn upwards
was called "the Athens of Ireland", though
with the odd
at the end of their sentence. It
I would
say rather, the Naples: in any case, Cork has always
sent out far more than its share of brains. In the
days of "Father Prout", who wrote the "Bells of
Shandon" and other immortal ditties, Cork had a