1936 On the Continent

elk are still found preserved in the bogs. This elk, the largest of the genus Cervus, is akin to the moose deer of America and was co-existent in Ireland with the present state of organised matter.
    The folk-lore of the little people who milked the wild deer upon the hills and lived under the green mounds, is perhaps connected with the migrations of Icelanders and reindeer; but the whole history of Ireland is so interesting and controversial that it should be studied from the works of Irish historians.
Irish History is Vital Reading
    Probably the evidences of earlier cultures that will strike the stranger first are the curious high round towers that occur all over the country, and for which there are many different theories. There are early pagan temple sites; traces of Viking invasion, and old and powerful Irish tribal strongholds that have left the earthworks to show the size and power of the old Irish kingdoms.
    During the early Christian period, Ireland was a stronghold of learning and culture. One must study the records in the great centres of learning in Medieval Europe to appreciate the position of the Irishman at that time. Only an historian could do justice to the many names, but all down the west of Ireland one name will meet the visitor: that of St. Brendan (or Brandan). From north of the Mullet, to south beyond Killarney, St. Brendan holds sway. His chapel, his harbour, his bay, his hill, his boats, his isles of the sunset—and no man can dispute the sincerity of the legends.
    What is the substance behind them? An Irish sailor in his curragh among the Western Islands. An Irish saint building under divine guidance a stronger wooden boat (a boat, built in that centuries-old shipyard of the Claddagh in Galway where the same ships are built to-day). St. Brendan, with his staunch company of sailors, goes forth on voyages and sails further than man had dared before.
Early Irish Sailors
    And the stories of his voyages were arranged in the lovely liquid verse forms of the period and became the most popular of all travellers’ tales. St. Brendan and his sailors were beloved and embroidered till they were gathered up to the clouds of heaven and the voyagers were given one glimpse of Paradise itself. On voyages south, they visit flowery sunlet isles where it is always summer and the fruits are gold among the flowers: and it may have been the Canary Isles. They find Judas, released from Hell by the mercy of the Virgin, wind-lashed upon an iceberg—some say it was off the coast of Newfoundland. No one can now disentangle the facts from the fables. Were the burning sands and fiery mountains volcanoes? of Etna? on the gold coasts of Africa? and when they sailed far away beyond the sunset—did they reach America? No one knows where St. Brendan’s men went, but you will walk with their spirits all down the west of Ireland.
Other Irish Saints
    In the north, St. Columba takes the place of St. Brendan and is easier for the visitor to follow, for he went north to Iona. They say from the first isle he landed upon, he could, looking back, see Ireland—and so drove further afield, lest being Irish he should return.
    St. Patrick is everywhere over Ireland. It was he, they say, put a curse to drive out all the snakes. Another saint, somewhat revered in Connaught, did the same praiseworthy act by the fleas; but with (apparently) less success.
    Yes, I think the visitor to Ireland should prepare himself with some stories of the Irish saints. How otherwise will he appreciate their tiny rock-bound churches, where the wind and seaweed blow over the stone altars, and the skulls lie uncovered on the thin turf? Or how will he findthe hundreds of holy wells and hear the stories that well up, as clear and fresh as the sparkling water, from each?
    In south and east Ireland the student of later history will find Sir Walter Raleigh’s estates; and in future read between the lines of “Colin Clout,” that love for Ireland that he and Spenser shared in the “Shepherd’s Calendar.”
    During later periods came the terrible “curse of Cromwell” and all the troubles that have battered Ireland so bitterly.
The New Coinage
    There are still later terrible famine mounds that mark whole districts with a dark cross, and ruined mines, and empty homesteads, and enough traces of troubled past to make the lover of Ireland rejoice in the better conditions that prevail to-day, and a prosperity that is brightly reflected in the shining new coinage,