XII. (59.) SUNDAY'S WELL is at the side of the high road, and is surrounded by a rude stone building, on a tablet in the wall of which the letters IHS mark its ancient reputation for sanctity. It is shaded over by some fine old ash trees, which render it a picturesque object. Although savouring strongly of egotism, I cannot resist copying from a Lady's Album, to which I had contributed a sketch of Sunday's Well, some verses written on the opposite page by the popular "Father Prout," who, unmasked, appears as one of my associates in commenting on the Tour of M. le Gouz. "In yonder well, there lurks a spell, It is a fairy font; Croker himself, poetic elf, Might fitly write upon't. "The summer-day, of childhood gay, I loved its brink-so did I think "Of early scenes, too oft begins The memory to grow fainter; Not so with me-Crofton, nor thee, 'The Doctor,' or the Painter. "There is a trace, time can't efface, Nor years of absence dim; It is the thought of yon sweet spot, C. XIII. THIS ancient round tower stood in the south-west corner of the cathedral churchyard, and was much shaken by the fire from the fort during the siege of Cork in 1690. If, as stated by our traveller, the tower was more than one hundred feet high," and this was probably the case, it is, I am inclined to think, the "Gill Abbey Castle" which Fitzgerald says fell down in 1738. (See note 60. p. 30.) The entrance, as is usual in the Irish pillar-tower, appears to have been some feet from the ground. Smith, in his History of Cork, mentions that, in 1690, General Scravenmore, having passed the river and being quartered at Gill Abbey, "not far from which stood the steeple of the cathedral church which looked into the fort, detached Lieutenant Horatio Townshend who, getting two files of men to the top of this steeple, killed the governor of the fort, and did other considerable execution. To remove this party, the Irish traversed two guns against the steeple and shook it exceedingly; whereupon the men offered to go down, but the brave Townshend, with invincible courage, commanded those below to take away the ladder, and continued in that post till the fort was surrendered the next day." In Ware's Irish Bishops, by Harris, published in 1739, it is stated, that "in the churchyard (of the cathedral) stands an old steeple, a little detached from the church, which some think was the work of the Ostmen of Cork, and first used by them for a watch tower." From a "Tour through Ireland, by two English Gentlemen," published in 1748, we learn, that "there is an intention of building a new steeple, and raising a noble portico to the west end of the (cathedral) church. But the tower near it is a mean spiral structure, low and poorly built." This was written after its fall, which, according to a manuscript account, reduced its height to "less than forty feet, but standing on elevated ground it seemeth somewhat taller." Dr. Smith, in his History of Cork, published in 1750, merely observes, that "some years ago an ancient round tower stood in the churchyard, a little detached from the church." It is like a dream to me, having had the foundation of this round tower (all trace of which is now completely gone) pointed out to me, about the year 1808. C. K 2 XIV. THE steeple and church of St. Finbar were built, or rather rebuilt in the course of the years 1750-60, from the proceeds of a tax of one shilling per ton on all coals imported into Cork from England. It is singular that this tax (which continues to the present day, and is appropriated to that sort of establishment which in modern political economy can find but little countenance, a foundling hospital) was justified in the Irish House of Commons as a protection to native industry in promoting the cutting of turf in the peat bogs! M. I have made many inquiries after the stone bearing the sainted imprint of St. Finbar's foot, but without success for nearly the last thirty years, until this summer [1836] when I was told by an old crone, who I found praying beside a grave in the churchyard of the Cathedral that such a stone had been there "beyond all doubt in the ould times, before Orange William came, and that then it changed into the mark of the devil's hoof." "But the mark of the foot or hoof, is in the stone?" said for information. I, eager "Oh without any kind of doubt in life, your honour; and why wouldn't it be there? sure you can see it with your own two sweet looking eyes, and seeing they say is believing, if ye'll go and look at the third grave-stone there, fornenting ye." I did so, but saw nothing more than a plain slab-stone elevated upon some brick-work, with a short inscription importing that some one or other, whose name I do not now remember, was buried beneath about sixty or seventy years before; but I perceived no trace of hoof or foot. "Harkee, old woman," I cried, "where is this hoof?" "And sure yourself is stan'ing on it," she replied; "the Virgin herself preserve us from all harm this blessed day, if tisn't come may be to set the other foot there, beside it ye are, for company!" I jumped down from the grave-stone, and certainly saw a singular fossil remain in the piece of limestone on which I had been standing, not unlike the mark of a cloven foot. Stones with hollows in them, said to be impressed by the feet and knees of saints, giants, and other famous personages in Ireland, are by no means of rare occurrence, and are treated by the superstitious peasantry with extraordinary respect. There is a representation of one of these capsular stones (I think called St. Columb's) in the account of Londonderry printed to accompany the Ordnance Survey. In the county of Tipperary, about a mile from Cahir on the Ardfinnan road, a similar stone with two circular hollows in it, called Clough a Pudrigh (Patrick's stone) is an object of much veneration; and at the distance of a mile from Rahil towards Cahir, a pentacapsular stone occurs, which is termed Clough a vir a vaugher (the stone of the mother of the man), and the marks in which are said to have been produced by the knees, breasts, and head of the Virgin. At Caher-barrule in the wild district of Muskerry in the county of Cork, (a district singularly rich in pillar stones inscribed with Ogham characters,) there is a stone with two hollows in it, at the foot of an upright one, on which is rudely sculptured a cross surrounded by a circle. In the county of Kerry also, the stone with two circular hollows in it, known as Clough na Cuddy (Cuthbert's stone) is pointed |