the eye can easily trace the river, winding with haste
to the sea, through the barony of Muskerry, "the fair country," from its
fountain home over the hills and far away.

[Illustration: _Photo, Lawrence, Dublin._ Patrick-street, Cork.]

More than halfway along the Mardyke Walk there is a sidepath leading
down to a ferry across the Lee. Here a good view may be had of the river
looking towards the city, with Sunday's Well, Blair's Castle, and
Shandon standing high on the hill.

The history of the foundation of Cork City, and its progress through the
centuries, is well authenticated. Towards the close of the sixth
century, the place was founded by Lochan, son of Amirgin, the great
smith to Tiernach M'Hugh, the proud chief of the O'Mahonys. Lochan has
since come to be called St. Finbarr. His feast day is a retrenched
holiday in the diocese of Cork, and his patron day is kept by the
peasantry at the shrine of Gougane Barra, by the cradle of the river
Lee. The Irish name, Cork, signifies that the locality was a marsh, and
in the life of its founder it is described as a "land of many waters."

[Illustration: _Photo, Roche, Dublin._ The Marina, Cork.]

For less than three hundred years the little city throve, and then came
the Sea Rovers, hungry for spoil. In 820 they burned down Cork, carrying
away as pillage the silver coffin wherein St. Finbarr was buried.
Shortly afterwards they returned, and seized on the marshes lying
beneath Gill Abbey Rock, fortified them, and founded another little
city--but their own. There they sang their "Mass of the Lances; it began
at the rising of the sun," and, as the Four Masters assure us,
"wheresoever they marched they were escorted by fire."

But in time the Rovers were absorbed, and race hatreds died out. They
paid tribute to the MacCarthys, and were married and given in marriage
to the Irish. Merovingian Kings came to buy and sell in Cork, and the
Sagas of the North tell of many a hardy Norseman who fell captive to the
maidens of Munster. To this day the Danish blood moulds the nature of
many in Cork, and among the men especially the passionate affection for
the sea is a characteristic. When the Normans invaded Ireland they found
Cork a Danish fortress. They broke the power of the Danes in a sea
fight, and won over the allegiance of MacCarthy, the old King of Cork,
through the wiles of a woman. The strangers had not been long in the
city when they, like the Danes before them, were ab