d, is a kind of Terra Incognita to the greater part
of Europe.'

Is it not so to this day?

Do I not meet scores of people who tell me they would love to go to
Kerry, but they have never been nearer than Killarney.

That is the sort of speech which makes me wonder how geography is
taught.

It is on a par with the remark of a prominent Arctic explorer, that he
had never been to Killarney because it was so far off.

People, however, who go there apparently like it.

The chief Elizabethan settlers in Kerry were William and Charles
Herbert, Valentine Brown, ancestor of the Kenmares, Edmund Denny, and
Captain Conway, whose daughter Avis married Robert Blennerhasset, while
a little later, in 1600, John Crosbie was made Bishop of Ardfert and
Aghadoe.

To-day the descendants of those settlers are still among the principal
folk in Kerry, though that is more due to their own selves than to the
support they had from any British Government.

This Valentine Brown, who was a worshipful and valiant knight, wrote a
discourse for settling Munster in 1584. His plan was to exterminate the
FitzGeralds and to protestantise Ireland; but by the irony of fate his
own son married a daughter of the Earl of Desmond and became a Roman
Catholic.

In the Carew Manuscript it is recorded that he estimated that one
constable and six men would suffice for Cork, but for Ventry, 'a large
harbour near Dingle,' one constable and fifty men were necessary; so he
evidently had a clear apprehension of the villainous capabilities of the
men of Kerry.

It is also recorded that in the parish of Killiney is a stronghold
called Castle Gregory, which before the wars of 1641 was possessed by
Walter Hussey, who was proprietor of the Magheries and Ballybeggan.
Having a considerable party under his command, he made a garrison of his
castle, whence having been long pressed by Cromwell's forces, he escaped
in the night with all his men, and got into Minard Castle, in which he
was closely beset by Colonels Lehunt and Sadler. After some time had
been spent, the English observing that the besieged were making use of
pewter bullets, powder was laid under the vaults of the castle, and both
Walter Hussey and his men were blown up.

Prior to this, 'on January 31, 1641, Walter Hussey, with Florence
MacCarthy and others, attacked Ballybeggan Castle, plundered and burnt
the house of Mr. Henry Huddleston, and did the same to the house and
haggards of Mr. Hore, where th