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42
LEINSTER
more rusticity. At Rathdrum you strike the valley
of the Avonmore, which is the centre of all this beauty
that makes southern Wicklow famous. The line
runs through a wooded ravine with the river below
it, plunging and swirling, and beyond the river you
catch a glimpse of Avondale House, now a school
of forestry, but once known to every Irishman as the
home of Charles Stuart Parnell. The water comes
down here discoloured with mineral washings that
remind one of the chemical investigations which
made up the pleasure of Parnell's strange life. He
dreamed of gold mines in Wicklow— it was only in
politics that the stern practical bent of his mind
made itself apparent and effectual.
A little farther on the Avonbeg meets the Avon-
more; farther yet, beyond Woodenbridge and its hotel,
this main stream is joined by the Aughrim River,
and controversy still rages as to which of the two
confluences was honoured in Moore's melody:
"There is not, in the wide world, a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the wild waters meet!"
Moore himself very diplomatically said he was not
sure; but at any rate the valley through which the
train runs till it reaches Arklow at the river's outfall is
Moore's "Sweet Vale of Avoca"; there is no mistake
about that, and no question of its gentle loveliness.