IRISH GARDENING 



VOLUME IV. 



Xo. jg 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE 



ADVANCEMENT OF HORTICULTURE AND 



ARBORICULTURE IN IRELAND 



The Making of our Home. 



[Fifth . 

 By Charlotte 



NOT this year has roaring March come in 

 like a lion, rather indeed as a Polar 

 bear he has come snarling' along, bare- 

 ing his frost-white teeth, his soft, mazy, snow- 

 white locks shaking and quivering to the East 

 wind. He seeks the tender green things 

 neglected throughout our mild, unguarded 

 winter, and stabs them with his ice-cold fangs. 

 And yet some days the dazzling sun of Polar 

 summer has followed his footsteps. On the 

 fith I think it was, for two hours or so, though 

 the frost was caked white under the shadow of 

 the hill, I lay out basking, baking in the 

 sunshine on a carpet of needles under the Piniis 

 insignis, the grey needles underneath dry and 

 crisp, and hot the green needles overhead 

 shivering and shimmering against the clear, 

 blue, frost sky, while the great bole and 

 branches of the pine caught me with desire for 

 my photo man, kind Mr. Hurley, who has 

 allowed me to use his charming photos for 

 these papers.* For, indeed, the right use of 

 photography is to interpret the intricacies of 

 vegetation, or of the human countenance, or 

 animal life. Scenery at a distance is invariably 

 a failure. So I was thinking as I lay in the 

 sun under my pinus looking far out over the 

 island, beyond to the Beeves Lighthouse, and 

 away and away, and my heart sank at the 

 thought of even attempting to speak of our 

 river, of our ever varying, ever wonderful 

 Shannon, which lay before my eyes, it and its 

 country spread wide in its sweeping magnifi- 

 cence of tender, frost bright colour. Looking 

 at this photograph {see p. 67) you see indeed the 

 garden and the island, and the Port of Foynes all 

 right, but you do not see even in a suggestion 



• James Hurley, Travelling Photographer. 14 Staines Street, South 

 Circular Road, Dublin. 



1 /•//(■/(■. ) 



G. O'Brien. 



the great plains oi Limerick and Tipperary 

 extending thirty, forty, fifty, perhaps even sixty 

 miles, where the Golden Vale intervenes between 

 the Galtees and Lough Gur hills to the south- 

 east, and the Keeper range. Limerick, Cratloe 

 and Clare hills to the north-east, at the foot of 

 which the Shannon loses itself to our view 

 after spreading up the Fergus estuary to a 

 width of five miles or more. The Port of 

 Foynes is enclosed by the island, which occupies 

 a sort of corner. North of the island the main 

 river flows three miles wide before it divides as 

 you go up the river. It is salt water, so the 

 tides give a constant variety, sometimes brimful 

 to the green edges, again leaving apparently only 

 the real river in its oozj- channel. 



That March day under the pine I lay and 

 watched the gradual lifting from off the dis- 

 tances of the smoke-like band of fog that hid 

 the hills and the far off plains, while all near at 

 hand lay in a blaze of hot sun. The sky above 

 the brown fog band was of that lustrous, blue- 

 green transparency one sees when the air is 

 saturated with moisture and sunshine and 

 partially crystallsed by frost. It is a very bad 

 weather sign, but is most beautiful and brings 

 with it occasionally most wonderful mirage. 

 Look down at the river and you will see that 

 blue-green band repeated. You will not look 

 down on it but through it. It stands beforeyour 

 eyes raising the banks above almost into cloud- 

 land. I have seen on such a day as that 

 the whole wide river towards Clare apparently 

 lifted so as to overflow Cahircon, Kildysart, 

 and the country beyond. So perfect was the 

 illusion that for the moment I was taken in by 

 it myself, and to make it fully natural a good- 

 sized ship with trailing boat, every cord and 

 colour clear, was floating at first over the hill 



