248 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



which are one of the most curious superstitions 

 of Ireland. You turn the stones and wish for 

 some evil to fall upon an enemy and I regret to say 

 that the stones are worn and polished even now 

 from constant fingering. 



Quite a few years ago a man beat and hurt an 

 old woman who threatened to " turn the stones 

 of Kilmoon on him." The case was tried at Petty 

 Sessions, and it was brought up as evidence and 

 proved to the satisfaction of the Court, that by 

 saying a certain prayer, the going round the altar 

 and turning the stones " against the sun " the 

 face of the cursed person could be twisted, and the 

 belief in it all was so real that the assault was 

 looked upon as justified and a mere act of self- 

 defence. 



It is a strange sight to look across the sea of 

 stone when it is all shimmering with heat. Endless 

 waves of grey, with here and there a break of one 

 field of green and rising from it great mountain 

 rollers, grey again to their grey-crested summits, 

 the heat haze making a veil which dances across 

 the sun-baked stones. You turn from the stone 

 sea to look to the real sea outside and see the 

 resemblance in them, save that one moves and 

 one is still. 



On the road back to Limerick not far from Lis- 

 doonvarna — at which resort one can become 

 acquainted with sulphur springs and bitter winds 

 — stands Lemina Castle, a gaunt bleak ruin of no 



