recesses of Glenmalure, so that it cuts across the headwaters of those
beautiful streams which meet in the Vale of Ovoca. From Glenmalure the
road climbs a steep ridge and then travels in wide downward curves
across the seaward side of Lugnaquilla--fifth in height among Irish
mountains. Here, at the head of a long valley which runs down to the
Meeting of the Waters, was built one of the barracks which billeted the
original garrison of the road. Later, these buildings had been used for
constabulary; but with peaceful times this grew needless, for there was
little disturbance among these Wicklow folk, tenants of little farms,
each with a sheep-run on the vast hills. Nothing could be less like the
flat sea-bordering lands of the Barony of Forth in which the Redmonds
spent their boyhood than these wild, sweeping, torrent-seamed folds of
hill and valley; but the place came to him as part of his inheritance
from "the Chief." Parnell's home at Avondale was some ten miles from
here, lying in woods beside the Ovoca River; but the Parnell property
stretched up to the slopes of Lugnaquilla, and the dismantled barrack
was used by him as a shooting lodge. Here, in the early days before his
life became absorbed in the masterful attachment which led finally to
his overthrow, he spent good hours; and here the two Redmonds and those
others of his followers who were his companions came to camp roughly in
this strange, gaunt survival of military rule. After Parnell's death
Redmond bought the barrack and a small plot of land about it, and it
became increasingly and exclusively his home in Ireland. It was, indeed,
Ireland itself for him. In it and through it he knew Ireland intimately,
felt Ireland intensely and intensively, not only as a place, but as a
way of being. Ireland to him meant Aughavanagh.

Partly, no doubt, the almost unbroken wildness of his surroundings
appealed to an element of romance in his character, which was strongly
emotional though extremely reticent. Only an artist would have