Kathleen in Ireland

Etta Blaisdell McDonald

Jan. 1927 · Library of Alexandria

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There is surely no country in the world where hearts so thinly covered beat so warmly as in the Emerald Isle. Wherever one travels,—over the bare mountains of Donegal and the rocks and cliffs of the northern coast, or among the blue lakes and green fields of the South,—he will always find a merry greeting and a hearty Irish welcome. The boys and girls have a smile and a cheerful word for every wind that blows; and that day is a rare one, indeed, which is not sunny with laughter and singing, even while clouds hide the blue sky and Irish rains are falling.

The wonder is that Irish boys and girls can find it in their hearts to leave their beautiful, loving land of the shamrock. So many fairy lakes were never found in any other country. Green meadows never offered sweeter resting places than those of the Emerald Isle; yet its young people turn their backs to it, and their blue eyes toward the more barren worlds beyond the seas.

This story of Irish Kathleen gives glimpses of ancient Ireland, as well as pictures of the life of to-day with its tales of wee folk and giants, its picnics and turf-cutting, its dancing and sheep-shearing, its hunting and farming.

Kathleen lives first with her father up among the mountains of lonely Donegal; she goes with her little sister to spend a summer in County Sligo, and she lives a year with her ten cousins, the Malones of old Kilkenny, and a jolly, rollicking brood she finds them. She learns something of the history of Ireland from her father, and hears the story of the life of the good Saint Patrick; but she enjoys also the Gaelic tales which her grandmother tells her about the fairies, and the story of Finn MacCool, which she hears when she goes with her uncle to see the Giant’s Causeway.