MUCKROSS, KILLARNEY.
From above Torc Waterfall, showing the upper and lower lakes with the peninsula which divides them.
CHAPTER IV
MUCKROSS
Nothing more beautiful than the scene viewed from Muckross (“the place of wild swine”) can be imagined. Its woods and lawns form a large promontory, shooting far into the lake, which the wooded isles beyond seem almost to join, the water breaking and glancing between like tiny bays. Muckross Abbey Mansion stands in lovely grounds, which, fringing the slope to the water’s edge, form a beautiful shore to the lake.
The scene which this point commands is unrivalled—indeed, Torc lake (Torc, a wild boar) need fear no comparison. Toomies and Glena are opposite, so softly outlined by the beautiful waving forests which cling to their sides that their magnificent height is half forgotten. In contrast the hills which rise above the Eagle’s Nest are bare, broken, almost savage.
But if it is hard to convey by words an idea of scenery in general, more difficult is it with that of Killarney, so varied are the effects produced under its changeful skies,
“Shining through sorrow’s beam,
Saddening through sorrow’s gleam.”
Mr. Young, our English visitor of long ago, notices this much. In one place he observes: “Torc was obscured by the sun shining immediately above him, and, casting a stream of burning light on the water, displayed an effect to describe which the pencil of a Claude alone would be equal.”
The ruined Abbey of Muckross stands in the grounds of Muckross demesne, and was founded by a MacCarthy Mor in 1340, according to the Annals of the Four Masters, upon the site of a much older church, which was destroyed by fire. It was built for Conventual Franciscans, and was dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The original name was Irrelagh.