--Here you are, citizen, says Joe. Take that in your right hand and repeat
after me the following words.
The muchtreasured and intricately embroidered ancient Irish
facecloth attributed to Solomon of Droma and Manus Tomaltach og
MacDonogh, authors of the Book of Ballymote, was then carefully
produced and called forth prolonged admiration. No need to dwell on the
legendary beauty of the cornerpieces, the acme of art, wherein one can
distinctly discern each of the four evangelists in turn presenting to each
of the four masters his evangelical symbol, a bogoak sceptre, a North
American puma (a far nobler king of beasts than the British article, be it
said in passing), a Kerry calf and a golden eagle from Carrantuohill. The
scenes depicted on the emunctory field, showing our ancient duns and raths
and cromlechs and grianauns and seats of learning and maledictive stones,
are as wonderfully beautiful and the pigments as delicate as when the
Sligo illuminators gave free rein to their artistic fantasy long long ago
in the time of the Barmecides. Glendalough, the lovely lakes of Killarney,
the ruins of Clonmacnois, Cong Abbey, Glen Inagh and the Twelve Pins,
Ireland's Eye, the Green Hills of Tallaght, Croagh Patrick, the brewery of
Messrs Arthur Guinness, Son and Company (Limited), Lough Neagh's banks,
the vale of Ovoca, Isolde's tower, the Mapas obelisk, Sir Patrick Dun's
hospital, Cape Clear, the glen of Aherlow, Lynch's castle, the Scotch
house, Rathdown Union Workhouse at Loughlinstown, Tullamore jail,
Castleconnel rapids, Kilballymacshonakill, the cross at Monasterboice,
Jury's Hotel, S. Patrick's Purgatory, the Salmon Leap, Maynooth college
refectory, Curley's hole, the three birthplaces of the first duke of
Wellington, the rock of Cashel, the bog of Allen, the Henry Street
Warehouse, Fingal's Cave--all these moving scenes are still there for us
today rendered more beautiful still by the waters of sorrow which have
passed over them and by the rich incrustations of time.
|