"Glashen-glora," adds the author, "is a mountain torrent, which finds its way into the Atlantic Ocean through Glengariff, in the west of this county (Cork). Glashenglora, I have been informed, signifies the roaring torrent.' Whether this is a literal or liberal translation, I will not venture to assert."

The Editor may add that the name, literally translated, signifies "the noisy green water:" glas, green; eŋ, water; gloraċ, noisy.

'Tis sweet, in midnight solitude,

When the voice of man lies hush'd, subdued,

To hear thy mountain-voice so rude

Break silence, Glashen-glora!

I love to see thy foaming stream

Dash'd sparkling in the bright moonbeam;

For then of happier days I dream,

Spent near thee, Glashen-glora!

I see the holly and the yew

Still shading thee, as then they grew;
But there's a form meets not my view,
As once, near Glashen-glora!

Thou gaily, brightly, sparkl'st on,
Wreathing thy dimples round each stone;

But the bright eye that on thee shone

Lies quench'd, wild Glashen-glora!

Still rush thee on, thou brawling brook;
Though on broad rivers I may look
In other lands, thy lonesome nook
I'll think on, Glashen-glòra!

When I am low, laid in the grave,
Thou still wilt sparkle, dash and rave
Seaward, 'till thou becom'st a wave
Of ocean, Glashen-glora!

Thy course and mine alike have been
Both restless, rocky, seldom green;
There rolls for me, beyond this scene,
An ocean, Glashen-glora!

And when my span of life's gone by,
Oh! if past spirits back can fly,
I'll often ride the night-wind's sigh

That's breathed o'er Glashen-glora!

GOUGANE BARRA.

The river Lee, the Luvius of Ptolemy, has its origin in the romantic lake of Gougane Barra, which is about two miles in circumference, and is formed by numerous streams descending from the mountains that divide the counties of Cork and Kerry.

One small island, with some luxuriant ash-trees upon it, growing amid the ruined walls of a rude building, is strikingly contrasted with the bare precipices and the wild and uncultivated hills which surround this beautiful lake

of dark clear water. The approach to Gougane Barra was formerly over rocky moors, intersected by numerous mountain defiles; and this difficulty of access, together with the remote situation of the place from "tower or town," made it a secure retreat for the vanquished and persecuted of various periods.

The verdure of a solitary island reflected from the gentle bosom of a lake, encircled by the stately cliffs of majestic mountains, would have been sufficient to consecrate the spot in the minds of those who, in times of trouble, sought as an asylum the rugged scenery amid which it reposed. They fled from clamour, strife, and danger; and here they found stillness, peace, and safety. The island which rested on the waters of "lone Gougane Barra," seemed to those who had retreated there," when all but hope was lost," as an ark sanctified by a tradition of the early ages of Christianity, from whence they might securely look abroad for the olive-branch of peace. But alas! no dove was ever sent forth by the defeated, yet unconquered Irish, as the spirit of the verses to which these remarks are prefixed will testify. In this "green island" it is believed that the venerable St. Finbar, so named from his gray locks,* led for many years a life of holy seclusion about the close of the sixth century, previous to his founding the cathedral church of Cork; and from this circumstance Dr. Smith says, that Gougane Barra signifies the hermitage of St. Finbar. The doctor, however, is mistaken in this assertion, as the Irish word gougane,† like the French glouglou, is descriptive of a

* Fin, or fine, whiteness; bar, a head.
† 505an, cackling, prating.-O'REILLY.

bubbling or gurgling sound; and Gougane Barra means, literally, the" gurgling head" of the river Lee: than which name nothing can accord more closely with the words of a writer in Bolster's "Magazine," a Cork periodical, who, in an account of this lake, speaks of "the murmur of the young Lee, as complainingly its waters quitted for ever their wild home in the mountains."

Mr. Callanan, of whom a short memoir will be found at p. 130, is the author of the following spirit-stirring song on Gougane Barra. It was composed by him in 1826. "During Mr. Callanan's residence in Bantry," says his biographer," he made many excursions to visit the surrounding scenery, which is of the most romantic and interesting character. The beautiful lines on Gougane Barra' were written in that secluded hermitage during a thunder storm, which had overtaken him there." A copy of these verses was transmitted by Mr. Callanan to Dr. Maginn, in a letter (now in the Editor's possession) dated September 27, with a request to endeavour to get them inserted in the "New Monthly Magazine," then edited by Mr. Thomas Campbell; but they do not appear to have been printed in that periodical. An inferior version to that now given is included in the posthumous collection of Mr. Callanan's poems, entitled "The Recluse of Inchidony," &c.

There is a green island in lone Gougane Barra,
Whence Allu of songs rushes forth like an arrow;

In deep-valley'd Desmond* a thousand wild fountains
Come down to that lake, from their home in the mountains.

South Munster, in distinction to Thomond or North Munster, the ancient division of the kingdom of Momonia. Like the Hebrews,

There grows the wild ash; and a time-stricken willow
Looks chidingly down on the mirth of the billow,
As, like some gay child that sad monitor scorning,
It lightly laughs back to the laugh of the morning.

And its zone of dark hills-oh! to see them all brightening,
When the tempest flings out his red banner of lightning,
And the waters come down, 'mid the thunder's deep
rattle,

Like clans from their hills at the voice of the battle;
And brightly the fire-crested billows are gleaming,
And wildly from Malloc* the eagles are screaming
Oh, where is the dwelling, in valley or highland,

So meet for a bard as that lone little island ?

How oft when the summer sun rested on Clara,†

And lit the blue headland of sullen Ivara,‡

Have I sought thee, sweet spot, from my home by the

ocean,

And trod all thy wilds with a minstrel's devotion,
And thought on the bards who, oft gathering together,
In the cleft of thy rocks, and the depth of thy heather,
Dwelt far from the Saxon's dark bondage and slaughter,
As they raised their last song by the rush of thy water.

the Irish expressed the south and north by the right and left hand. Thus, bear, the right hand, is the only word in the Irish language which signifies south; as cuat, the left, is the north. The compound mond probably means a mountain chain.

*A mountain over the lake.

+ The Irish name for Cape Clear. Beer Haven.