Ireland/Irish > Black's guide to Killarney and the south of Ireland

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DUBLIN TO CORK.
arches, springing from massive colnmns of marble. The western window is
triplicated, and a cross and two Gothic finials crown the centre and angles of the
great gable.”
The interior of this venerable pile is in good preservation,
having been greatly restored by the present Dean Vignolles.
Among the monumental remains, which are very numerous
and interesting, is the tomb of Peter Butler, eighth Earl of
Ormonde, and his amazonian Countess, known by the Irish
as Moryhyhead Ghearhodh. They both died in the sixteenth
century. The countess was a Fitzgerald, and as warlike as
any of the race. “ She was always attended by numerous
vassals well clothed and accoutred, and composing a formidable
army.” It is related that she levied black mail on her less
powerful neighbours, much in the style of Rob Roy. There
is a cenotaph to the memory of Dr. Pococke, bishop of Meath,
who, while bishop of Ossory with Kilkenny, did much towards
the restoration of St. Canice’s Cathedral. Near the cathedral
is one of the ancient round towers of Ireland, 108 feet in
height, and in good preservation.
St. John's, known as the Lantern of Ireland, from the
number of its windows, was formerly an abbey founded in the
thirteenth century, afterwards much dilapidated, but re-edified
in 1817, and since used as a parish church. Black Abbey, also
founded in the thirteenth century, is an interesting ruin. It
would be impossible within our limits to notice all the ruins
and memorials with which Kilkenny abounds, or to do full
justice to those which we do notice. Days may be well spent
in searching them out. Kilkenny was the birth-place of the
_ Irish Walter Scott, John Banim, who represented the character
’ of his countrymen with more truth and picturesque effect than
any other of the Irish novelists. At Kilkenny several trials
for witchcraft have taken place, the most remarkable being
that of Lady Alice Kettell in 1325.*
* The following is a paragraph from a letter by Mr. Crofton Croker, on the
subject of witchcraft in Ireland, published in the Dublin Journal:—“Ireland
has been, in my opinion, unjustly stigmatized as a barbarous and superstitious
country. It is certain that the cruel persecution carried on against poor and
ignorant old women was as nothing in Ireland when compared with other
countries. In addition to the three executions at Kilkenny, a town the inhabitants
of which were almost entirely either English settlers or of English descent, I
only remember to have met with an account of one other execution for the crime
of witchcraft. The latter took place at Antrim in 1699, and it is, I believe, the